I didn’t vote for Obama in 2008. I won’t be voting for him in 2012 either.

Back in 2008, Obama captured the hopes and dreams of many Americans… especially the young. He spoke of hope. He spoke of opportunity for all. He spoke of repairing America’s damaged image in the world. Those drawn to his eloquence worked hard for him and voted for him. If they were paying attention once he took office, their hopes quickly vanished.

Nothing has changed.

Wealth has become even more concentrated. Military spending remains out of control. Our civil liberties have come under severe attack with the treasonous NDAA. Local school budgets are under pressure as charter schools and “employer-directed curricula” are praised. More nuclear, more pipelines and, can you believe it, “clean” coal have become a campaign cry. Corporate geneticists tamper with our food supply.  The cost of health care continues to skyrocket.

Nothing has changed.

And, because it seems just as relevant today as it seemed four years ago, I’ve included in this post the following article I wrote on OpEdNews back in February of 2008:

Obama: In the Shadows of Al Gore’s Moral Imperative

“This is a moral moment. This is not ultimately about any scientific debate or political dialogue. Ultimately, it is about who we are as human beings and whether or not we have the capacity to transcend our own limitations and rise to this new occasion. It is about whether or not we can see with our hearts, as well as our heads, the unprecedented response that is now called for; whether or not we can — in Lincoln’s phrase — disenthrall ourselves, shed the illusions that have been our accomplices in ignoring the warnings that have been clearly given, and to hear clearly the ones that are being given now.” – Al Gore “The Assault on Reason (p. 212)”

The context of Mr. Gore’s comment had to do with responding to the challenge of global warming, but, in my opinion, it applies to the many crises confronting us. For those to whom everything is politics and campaigning, hear the words: “this is not ultimately about any scientific debate or political dialogue.” Each of us has a moral obligation to hold everyone running for office to the very highest standards. We must not give our support and our votes lightly. Our duty to ourselves, our families, future generations and the global community demands that we look inside ourselves to our most deeply held values and ensure that they are reflected in those we support. To distract the electorate with gibberish like “inevitability”, endorsements and campaign hyperbole at the expense of reasoned discourse about where we are and where we must get to is a disservice to all mankind of the highest possible order.

I read the speech Mr. Obama gave last year at the Wilson Center. Few have surpassed his eloquence. Mr. Obama asked a most devastating question during his remarks. It is a question that should be asked not only with regard to how foreigners see us but also with regard to how we see our own government and our own country. Mr. Obama said the following:

“Al Qaeda’s new recruits come from Africa and Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Many come from disaffected communities and disconnected corners of our interconnected world. And it makes you stop and wonder: when those faces look up at an American helicopter, do they feel hope, or do they feel hate?”

When they look up at that American helicopter, do they feel hope or do they feel hate? That’s a wonderful question to ask. And Mr. Obama made numerous excellent points about how to improve America’s image in the world. He talked about foreign aid and education and understanding other cultures – all good. But he, and I don’t at all mean to single him out here, has failed to name that which far too often goes unnamed. All of these “goodwill” efforts are commendable. At the core of what America exports, however, is the military-backed support for multi-national corporate greed.

You cannot tiptoe around that. You cannot do all the pretty things and hide the ultimate oppression. As an example, look what happens right here in the US. The headline reads: “Walmart’s coming.” That’s the end of small town America. Board up the windows and tell the lifetime merchants their services and products are no longer needed. It changes more than just a few businesses; it changes the culture of America. And when a business is so large that whole towns are dependent on it, the citizens are readily blackmailed into catering to the whims of that business. Zoning laws are overlooked; pollution controls are eased; tax rebates are offered. The community is held hostage. This shouldn’t be news to anyone.

When America exports its multi-national corporations, especially those in the “extractive” industries (think Big Oil), things are much worse and the imbalance of power between third world governments and societies and the power of mega-corporations backed by American willpower, military power and economic power cannot protect local interests. Global corporatism is not “lifting all boats”, it’s raping foreign peoples all over the world and destroying the eco-structure on which we all depend. Do you think the loss of the Amazon rainforests happened because indigenous tribes are building too many canoes?

Of course, the plundering we allow these mega-corporations to do goes well beyond societal and environmental disruptions. The US, at the behest of industry, sends its “hitmen” to topple unfriendly governments and assassinate unfriendly leaders. Those countries able to resist often find themselves suffering severe economic consequences for playing hardball with US companies and the US government. In the end, what we allow to be “exported” in all of our names is poverty and oppression. We cannot gloss over, for example, the theft of Iraqi oil which will deprive the Iraqis of their primary source of wealth, and compensate the reality they’ll soon come to know with foreign aid in the form of beads and trinkets.

So, Mr. Obama has asked the right question and has even proposed some reasonable ideas about how to improve the image the rest of the world sees when it looks up at our “helicopters.” But, sadly, Mr. Obama’s remarks fall far short of addressing the real problems. He understands that poverty sits as a root cause of terrorism; he understands that unless we project American values to the rest of the world we will have no moral suasion; but he does not name the unnamed tyrant: imperialism. To fall short of this mark, even given all the other programs and goodwill gestures, will do nothing to change how America is rightfully seen by the rest of the world.

Those who accept the moral imperative Mr. Gore spoke of must see that “the very same beast” confronts us right here at home. Until we rid our own government and our own democratic institutions of this cancer, all the programs from all the candidates, no matter how well intended they may be, will not produce the changes we so urgently need. Our country is in decline; the great American empire may well be in the final stages of collapse; and global warming threatens the lives of hundreds of millions and the futures of all living species. Clearly, the moral imperative demands that our candidates speak the truth and rise above mere political concerns. If we fail to demand this of them, and surely they are all capable of it, then ultimately it is we who should be held most responsible. Please, let’s not let that happen.

Each year, the Congress convenes and determines how the Federal revenue pie will be sliced into pieces. Who gets a big share? Who gets the shaft? What are the top priorities? What is less important or even unimportant? The part of the budget over which Congress has control is called the discretionary part of the budget. If the US owes interest on debt it has borrowed from China, for example, it can’t vote to lower the interest rate or to pay China less than it owes. Things like interest on the national debt or things that are currently mandated by law, such as Social Security and Medicare, cannot be allocated a smaller share of the budget. In this sense, the costs are fixed and Congress has no jurisdiction, unless they change the laws, to increase or decrease the budget allocation.

When Congress sat down to slice up the 2012 budgetary pie, one item in the budget walked away with a majority of the discretionary resources. That item was military spending. In 2012, military spending will consume 59% of the discretionary budget. Here is a pie chart supporting this statistic:

And that’s the good news. The real amount of military spending goes well beyond what the budget indicates. You may find this hard to believe, or perhaps not, but political games are played with the budget to make the amount of military spending seem much lower than it actually is.

Consider the following line items (2006 data) that should be part of the military budget but are squirreled away into other budget buckets:

Annual Interest on War Debt: $207 billion
Veterans Affairs: $70 billion
Homeland Security: $69 billion
Military Retirements: $39 billion
Foreign Military Aid: $25 billion
Atomic Weapons: $17 billion

The actual military budget is really about 60% higher than the stated budget because of this budgetary gimmickry. The real military budget is somewhere in excess of $1.2 trillion each and every year.

A less commonly discussed statistic about military spending is the cost of this expense on a per capita basis. If we divide the number of US citizens into the budget allocation, we find that, on average, each and every citizen is now spending about $4,000 a year to pay the military tab. You can see support for that statistic in the following chart:

Four thousand dollars per citizen is a very real burden for most of us. Consider the cost of military spending to an average citizen over a lifetime of roughly eighty years. $4K a year times 80 years shows that the average American citizen will spend about $320,000 on the military over their lifetime. Now extend that to a typical family of four trying to send their kids to college, pay their mortgage, pay for health care and provide a little retirement security. How much does American military spending burden the average family of four over their lifetimes? It’s a staggering $1,280,000 or more. Can this really continue? We are bankrupting the country and bankrupting ourselves.

Some make arguments in support of military spending. “It creates jobs for people. It provides many poor people with training. The internet (ARPANET) was originally a military project. Military research has led to all sorts of technological breakthroughs. The military is making the country safer.”

Military spending is making the US much weaker; not stronger. Instead of investing in America’s future, we are spending 59% of our discretionary budget on things that do not make the country more competitive economically. Instead of upgrading our national infrastructure, we have deployed our military across the globe. Military personnel are now housed in almost 1,000 bases spread across almost every country in the world. What are they doing there? Many are busy, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan, guarding private oil company pipelines. They are acting as a private security force for multi-national oil companies. US taxpayers foot the bill; big oil and their investors rake in the dough. If we believe it is in the national interest to guard oil pipelines, we should nationalize the oil companies. Let the profits be returned to those who foot the bill.

Some have raised concerns that cutting military spending will cut millions of jobs during a severe recession. The wrong solution is to keep paying people to do things that don’t benefit us as a society. That never makes any sense. There are tons of productive projects that need to be done. We can easily reabsorb military personnel into the civilian economy if we get our priorities straight. They could be put to work rebuilding the interstate highway system and the many decrepit bridges all over the country that have fallen into disrepair. They could be trained and put to work building a globally-competitive national wi-fi system. They could be put to work in our public schools to lower student-teacher ratios. They could be put to work to design better-insulated buildings and to retrofit existing buildings to reduce energy demand. They could be put to work upgrading our national parks. In short, there are a million things, i.e. a million productive things, military personnel could be doing as they transition back into the civilian economy.

Well, that’s all fine, you say, but what’s the deal with cutting the military by 90%? Don’t you think that’s a little irresponsible?

I’m glad you asked.

Let me say at the outset that I am far from a military expert. I am just one citizen who clearly sees that the current military madness cannot continue. It’s literally killing us. The issue is not whether we need to significantly reduce military spending; the issue is whether we can reasonably explore cuts in the 90% range. Here’s my proposal to do just that.

Assuming that we view the purpose of military spending as defensive in nature, and we should, we ask the question “what countries might pose any risk at all to the US based on their history, or their ideology, or their level of military spending and sophistication?”

While answers to this question might vary, my answer is China and Russia. This is not to say that I believe either of these countries is likely to attack the US but rather that they could conceivably, perhaps at some point in the future, have the resources and technological sophistication to do so. How much do these two countries combined currently spend on their military?

The military budget for China and Russia combined is currently about $167 billion per year.

If we were to cut the US military budget by 90%, the US would be spending about $70 billion per year instead of the stated $700 billion line item. Clearly, few would be willing to spend that much less than China and Russia.

But suppose we thought of defense in a more global way? Suppose we thought in terms of a “shared defense” with our allies. Think about organizations like NATO as an example. By cooperating with our global allies, we could spread the costs of military preparedness across many countries. While coordination and defense strategies would become somewhere more complicated, the “shared defense” approach could literally save the US from bankruptcy and it could give the US a real opportunity to invest in more productive resources.

With China and Russia spending around $167 billion on their militaries every year, what kind of budget could a shared defense produce?

Here, based on 2010 data, are the military budgets of just some US allies:

France: $61 billion
UK: $57 billion
Japan: $51 billion
Germany: $47 billion
Italy: $38 billion
Australia: $27 billion
South Korea: $27 billion
Spain: $26 billion
Canada: $22 billion
Israel: $16 billion

Add these budgets to the $70 billion the US would spend after cutting its stated military budget by 90% and you have a combined budget of around $442 billion which is almost triple the combined military budgets of China and Russia.

Are there some problems with a shared defense model? I’m sure there are. Questions will be raised. What if this? What if that? The point is that it’s a starting point for a discussion that has been denied to the American people for far too long. No elected official would dare put this on the table. They are all so afraid of losing their next election that sound policy, especially radically different policy, cannot even be raised for discussion. If just one steps out of line, military spending targeted for their state will likely be reduced. It’s just easier for them to go along with the military-industrial complex than it is to do what’s right for the country.

Is a 90% cut feasible? Is shared defense a viable approach? Can the US continue to spend 59% of its discretionary budget (or more) on the military? Could we return millions of military personnel to our civilian economy and give them critically important, productive things to do? Most Americans believe the great American empire is in a steep, potentially terminal, decline. Most of the budget cutting being proposed targets a desperate, vulnerable population with cuts in public education funding, health care, Social Security and other anti-safety net madness. All this while the largest area of discretionary spending, i.e. military spending, seems politically immune to the kinds of cuts needed to rebuild the country. We’re in big trouble, folks, and the proposed shared defense program might just be a huge step in the right direction.

Is a 90% cut in military spending feasible? Yes, I believe it is.