The amount of media and organizing circus surrounding elections in the U.S. seems to increase in direct proportion to the amount of gerrymandering, voter suppression and corporate duopoly fielding of candidates. I have had my evenings interrupted by no less than Barack Obama on the telephone urging me to return to a naive belief that we can fix what's wrong with the world by voting. I've received messages from other countries urging that the enemy of the good is the perfect. My work inbox is full of messages from my union claiming that electing Democrats will save us, or from gun safety advocates claiming that my vote for candidates spouting empty words about gun control is crucial.
A friend who is more able to believe in our system of government than I am went to meet the Democratic challenger for Bruce Poliquin, the Wall St. darling allegedly representing me in the House of Representatives. As a Democrat, Golden has been well-schooled in what not to discuss with possible future constituents: our many wars, and our gargantuan Pentagon budget.
When my friend approached Golden and politely asked his views on foreign policy, he dutifully recited his Dem talking points: "This election is about immigration and climate change*."
Translation: U.S. foreign policy rests on taxpayers continuing to fund the biggest, most expensive military empire on Earth. End of discussion.
How to shore up that profit center, which the Occupy movement dubbed the 0.01% because weapons corporations are so obscenely wealthy, is the real job for anyone who aspires to be elected to Congress.
One of the bizarre features of modern times is that the CEOs of these military profit centers are, increasingly, women. Fortune magazine reported on the phenomenon with an appropriate military metaphor:
“THE LAST MAN STANDING.” That’s what some on Wall Street have recently nicknamed Tom Kennedy, the chairman and CEO of Raytheon. After all, he’s the only leader of a top five U.S. defense business who isn’t on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list—and for that fact, says Kennedy, “I couldn’t be prouder of our industry.”
Thus feminism has been twisted into supporting the Pentagon's plan for full spectrum dominance. Hey, it's the only game in town, right? Breaking the glass ceiling is presented as superior to feminist values. You remember those values, the ones Mother's Day was originally proclaimed by Julia Ward Howe to promote: an international congress of women convened to put an end to warmongering.
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| Rick Kuyper, Sacramento, California 2009 |
In a non-racist U.S. -- which has never yet existed -- that would have meant: I will not raise my children to kill Native people and steal their land.
Or lynch black people, or starve them, beat them, or enslave their children for my own profit. Or attack Chinese laborers and steal their gold. Or intern Japanese-American farming families and steal their farms.
The traitorous women who sell out for millions heading up corporations that create and sell weapons of mass destruction are lauded as the winners in the late stage, eat-your-young phase of capitalism.
For example, General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic recently screwed Maine taxpayers out of $45 million while 43,000 children in the state live in poverty.
Fortune reported of female CEOs:
Together, their companies generated a staggering $110 billion in defense-related revenue last year... a Republican-led Congress granted the Pentagon a budget increase of more than 15%—to $700 billion for fiscal 2018—with vocal support from the other side of the aisle.
Staggering is a good description, because the U.S. taxpayer for the next several generations will be staggering under the debt load of purchasing all these shiny toys for the Pentagon. Or in some cases, shiny toys for Saudi Arabian or Israeli generals to kill people in Yemen or Gaza. So-called military "aid" to other wealthy countries largely consists of credits to buy weapons.
Do you think our Saudi allies are troubled by women at the helm of corporations who make the bombs and airplanes they use?
...women account for nearly 19% of the CEOs in aerospace and defense, according to the Pew Research Center, compared with just 5% across all companies. No sector works more closely with the government and military than defense, which may be one reason it’s closer to gender equality. With the armed forces making deliberate efforts to expand women’s roles and the emergence of a generation of female generals as well as Air Force and Navy secretaries beginning in the ’90s, “the defense industry has realized they need to mirror their customers"
Who will be the last human standing in a world run amok? Probably some poor sucker standing in a voting booth in Texas, pulling a lever to vote for one flavor of the military-industrial complex while the machine registers a vote for the other flavor.
Which flavor prefers female merchants of death? They both do.
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* Re: climate change, the Pentagon is the biggest producer of carbon in the atmosphere of any organization on the planet. With full bi-partisan support, of course.
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