19,000 cops, pseudocops, metacops—wow!  I’m impressed!  Maybe demonstrations do something after all.  If only we could have gotten a cop turnout like that in NYC in ‘03—500,000 demonstrators and 500,000 cops; that would have been quite a scene!

Anarchissie:  Regarding your previous post:  “Demonstrations are expected in Toronto on a variety of causes including the environment and global poverty, with many activists opposing gatherings of the rich and powerful.” 
  The demonstrators (hoping for 20000) have caused Toronto th bring out 19000 “security forces.”  Wow!  Demonstrators are powerful!  Also, the reflexive Al Jazeera (!) report (with the black suits looking at their feet!)  I saw here on TD didn’t even mention what the demonstrators were demonstrating against or for—like no, no, you do-dos mustn’t know about that. you must think of them as dangerous anarchists. (fear! fear!)
  The money spent on cops plus plywood plus dogs, horses, motorcycles, gas, fencing etc. could have been offered to the protesters to stay home and donated to the African mothers and babies who were promised a G 20 donation 5 years ago and haven’t received it yet.  That would have made it unnecessary to cut back on this year’s promise.

It’s all too crazy and sad to be funny, and yet ...

No, Anarchissie, I don’t expect paid “journalists” to report or comment honestly ... but I think absurdities are getting so out of hand that just reporting absurdly on the absurdities might do it.  I could be wrong, of course.

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”—James Madison (1795)

If you’ve ever been to court in a civil suit, you know that to the attorneys, winning or losing isn’t as important as getting billable hours.

The longer the case goes on in court the more billable hours they get. So settling is costly, reaching an easy settlement is costly.

The same is true of war. The longer the war goes on, the more equipment the army needs, the more contractors get rich. The more there seems to be a need for adavanced weaponry of all kinds, and of all sorts of expenses to support them.

Maybe that’s why they no longer allow the generals to run things, and have military plans that are run by politicians - lawyers, who ensure that the war doesn’t end to soon.

Runaway spending, doesn’t end the wars, it’s not supposed to, it’s and end in itself. It makes money for the plutocracy, in fact it’s one of the most profitable businesses they have, outside of debt slavery.

My feeling is that the accumulating disasters in themselves are informing millions of people every day all over the world.  In that sense they are “doing the job of public information for us”—regrettably but effectively.

I have a feeling that things are brewing here, there and everywhere in all kinds of efforts and organizations to try to get control of the worst of these problems.  Whether things will “come together” in time is a question.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Each of us can and must do what we can wherever and however we can—not just talk about it (even those of us who are old, over the hill, and discombobilated by bodies and bank accounts that are freaking out on us. Also, thank God the world is full of younger people who want to live in a better world.

Editorial writers are almost compelled by the disasters to write about them, to comment on them, to suggest alternatives.  They are too big to ignore or cover up.  I really believe that uncontrolled capitalism and war are already dead ducks—they just don’t know it yet, and new and better, more rational forms have been proposed, experimented with, and may well take over with less stress than we think.  Of course the “old guard” will go down fighting, but they have already defeated themselves.  Maybe?  ...  Who knows for sure? It’s a terrific time to be alive.  All—or nothing.

You were under the mistaken impression (manufactured by them) that you actually had a real choice in the matter. That was the point of that exercise is to give us two bogus choices. Now you see what that does to us as a democratic-republic. Makes it a lie and we the ones lied to.

You see our dilemma? Two official parties, either one will be against us, one will just look and sound “better” to most of us. Not me because I can already see the king’s naked. Too many others think that if a different king comes out he/she will be clothed and treat him/her that way even though they continue to come out naked one after another.

I thought that when we rid ourselves of W, the wars would soon be over. In fact, i though a lot of things. I didn’t factor in the relentless, outlandish and hideous nature of Republican attacks continuing and the wimpish ways of the Democrats keeping them to the right on all issues. I am beginning to think we will not recover from Bush and neocons.

gerard, June 23 at 10:02 pm:
’... If the editorial writers, the op-ed commenters, the social and environmental ngo’s and the government agencies all concentrated on repeating this message, everyone in the country would understand what needs to be done and some would come forth with ideas of what to do and
attempts to organize to get it done. ...’</i>

Why would these people, who are almost all members or enthusiastic servants of the ruling class, repeat such a message?  They’d be cutting their own throats, at least in terms of success on the job.  If they were disposed to say such things, and had said them before, we wouldn’t have the problems we’re discussing.

I don’t think we’re at a stage where we can get the elites to do the right thing.  They’re bought and most of them are going to stay bought.  We need to find methods of going around them, or if we can’t go around them, embarrassing them or tricking them into doing right.  Alternatively, the lurching toward further catastrophes will continue, and maybe that will wake people up.

For the moment, though, even if people think capitalism-as-we-know-it is not so great, the goddess TINA rules.

In my opinion, the first thing that has to happen is that a majority of the undereducated American citizens have to understand the basics of out-of-control capitalism and its dependence upon production for war.  Then they will need to campaign for and promote laws that limit corporations’  range of destruction and ability to separate the few very rich from the multitudes of poor and middle class.

The economic crisis helped make this point for us, and many feel its bite in the form of lost homes and lost jobs.  The unwinnable wars have also brought home to millions the tremendous waste in war-making.
The unnecessary coal mine disaster and the have gigantic oil spill impressed millions with the growing corporate irresponsibility in ravaging the earth for hazardous energy sources.

All these disasters serve as a warning and point to what is going wrong and why.  If the editorial writers, the op-ed commenters, the social and environmental ngo’s and the government agencies all concentrated on repeating this message, everyone in the country would understand what needs to be done and some would come forth with ideas of what to do and attempts to organize to get it done.

Together, the force of an informed population would be formidable and the agencies for the security and welfare of the people as a whole would be activated.

Nobody can wave a magic wand, no matter how self-evident these facts may be.  But all of us on TD should be aware that enormous people-alerting forces are working for us and that we need to get on board at every level and help with information and organization.  Hokahey! as TaoWalker used to say.
(I still miss him and wonder where he is and what he is doing.)

So if war is a mode of capitalist accumulation—this seems to be the consensus here at the moment—does this suggest to us a way of reducing or stopping the present series of binges?

Could it possibly be that winning the wars is not the point because if wars are won, there is no need to make any more war supplies or support a vast army, navy, airforce. Result:  Unemployment goes through the roof, technology grinds to a halt.
  Could it be that the point is NOT to win wars because if wars are NOT won, the military industrial complex can go merrily on its way to ultimate destruction, trying to own, reform, dominate, exploit every last nation that has underdeveloped resources, every “terrorist” cell, every backward country struggling to maintain its equilibrium or free itself from past injustices.  Thousands will continue to be employed making bigger and better guns and thousands more will be employed shooting people with them. Thousands will be imprisoned because they objected to the craziness.
  When there are more guns than people and more prisons than schools,  the wars will be “won”—until some idiot starts another one. 
  Another world is possible.

Maybe one should look at the military spending as primary and the uses to which the military is put as secondary.  After all, “we” still have a capitalist economy, in which the movement and accumulation of funds are paramount.

The Number 1 military in the world and 23rd in healthcare.A sad “superpower”.

Do you mind making sure you close your italics please? </i>!

Those behind this policy are working to sew up the area in such a way that proxy gov’ts rule but the major US bases in the area can field troops and equipment as needed to back them up. (The real powers.) The unspoken agenda? Control of strategic reserves of oil and other materials for the master plan of Full Spectrum Dominance. Water will be as important as oil and tungsten in the future they envision. We may be impoverished but the oligarchs will be kept wealthy and cool and dry and have full larders even as the climate continues to change and become more harsh. (The harshening climate will be to their benefit if they use it to impose harsher measures on us in order to “protect” us.

The question is will we continue to allow them to spend $ trillions while they call for fiscal responsibility and financial woes when it comes to SS, Medicare/Medicade which cost considerably less?

“It has fought wars or carried out military interventions in Korea, China (via Kuomintang mercenary forces and Tibetan tribesmen), Cuba (via exiles), Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq (twice), Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan (twice), Pakistan (with drones and special forces), Nicaragua (via “Contras”), Grenada, Panama, Dominican Republic, Sudan and Kosovo (with NATO). It has also been involved with coups in Guatemala, Chile, Greece and elsewhere. There probably are more, but this is what I recall.”William Pfaff

So ever since the occupation of Iraq some of that neocolonialism was moved aside. Iraq is a base as is the state of Israel (special case as a protectorate) but what will be that third leg? Afghanistan? When they start mountain top removal for all those elements and keep the locals at bay? We shall see.

The question I see looming like a giant white elephant in the room is how much longer will we see the pretense for a democratic gov’t? When will they decide to stop being an inverted totalitarian state and go full upside totalitarian? When the big depression is triggered at any time? I think yes, so we must not let our economy fall. Separate the banks from their gambling with risk, remove all corporate mixing with state and bring it back to our gov’t helping us with our money. Return to the measures used to protect us from another depression now.

Obviously we need all this global firepower in order to crush any and all opposition to anyone anywhere opposed to Demockery, uh, Democracy.

US had been too small in 1550 for 1mn or so europeans.
Now, it is even the planet which is too small to house 300mn americans + another bn chosen people.

So, the indian wars must go on: the prize is the ORB.
The old indian wars have succeded brilliantly. The new wars are succeeding brilliantly in the eyes of masters of new indian wars.

The masters of war-people-dogs have lost just 1 k people in afgh’n in 9 yrs. At that rate, the new indian wars cld go on for centuries.

In a throw-away society, throwing soldiers away is a desirable thing to do in order to defend the greatness of america. tnx

“...battles were won but not a single war was won by the United States…”  G. Washington knew what of he spoke when he said that the British would win the battles in America during the Revolutionary War, but the Americans would win the war.

The American rag-tag, ill-equiped, ill-trained, impoverished military won a war against the British, well trained, well-equiped, well-financed military. And history will bear out that such conflicts always end this way. (Obviously, military history is not covered at the Point.)

Excuse me, Mo Hammad:  Those in the know are not marginalized by consumers.  The consumerss and those in the know both marginalize themselves by refusing to take responsibility for their self-government.

They do not realize—do not want to realize—their tremendous power and so hide it from themselves as well as from others. If they realize it, they have to come together and act.

By another name it’s called “willful ignorance.” It’s the devil’s best friend, so to speak. Don’t be part of it.

I think Mo Hammad sums it up quite neatly. Unfortunately the brainwashed will not wake up and find they have a powerful desire for the world gerard describes. There seems to be a strong human instinct to follow the powerful, even unto death and destruction.

That’s the old American political fallacy—at least as old as this country’s dependence on fiat money: throw enough greenbacks at a problem, and it can be solved as if by magic.

What happens if the fiat-money system collapses?

Where are the deficit hawks when you need them?

The world of war is impossible.  Another world is possible and must happen soon.  Be part of it.