Are Americans Truly Independent?

THE BRANCH UPON WHICH WE SIT 

By Ken Larson 

Technology has permitted marvelous advances and opportunities in communication and convenience. 

It has also impacted independent thought and created concerns with respect to privacy and transparency in government. Our focus has shifted recently to sophisticated forms of government technological control that may be both legal and illegal, and are being challenged in our court systems.

Mass marketing and communications have created expectations beyond reality in venues from romance web sites to building wealth.  They have also confused us about our government functions, our elected representatives and where they are taking us.

We have grown used to the convenience of viewing the world through media sound bites, opinionated, biased, news and insincere, short sighted, money driven politicians, who are financed by loosely controlled contributors and influenced by lobbying firms that spend enormous amounts of money made available by the wealthy to impact our opinions.

We have become less competitive in the global economy, as a concentration of wealth has shifted to a very few and our corporations evolve operations outside the country, taking the resulting tax relief, profits, investments and resources with them. 

THE CONUNDRUM

Consider simpler times a few years past. Trust was necessary in many venues as a means of survival on a day-to-day basis. We relied on others extensively for our well-being from our local store to our banker, from the policeman to the politician. And we knew them all better, we could reach out and touch them and we were not viewing them in sound bites and web sites, nor were we being bombarded with multiple forms of input to digest about them.

Americans have very little trust in the current era.  We see a negative, idealistically bound, bloated government, growing like a money- eating beast and putting generations in hock with unwarranted incursions into foreign countries and a focus on big corporations and big business. 

THE CHALLENGE

The key to our true independence is in becoming involved as individuals, taking flight on wings that grow strong by exercising our intellect, our shared opinions and our participation in government.  We must research a personal perspective based on our personal values and take time in the fast pace our culture demands to communicate with those we elect to government – before and after the election.

Trust is hard to establish in the modern era.  We see very little true statesmanship in the good people we send to Washington, who promptly become ground up in the huge machine there in order to survive.  That machine must change and the people we send to change it must share that objective with us. 

HOW STRONG ARE OUR WINGS?

Communications and expectations are two vital elements in measuring trust.
To an extraordinary extent, the age in which we live is requiring us to redefine trust and the degree to which communication and expectations contribute to it.  To become truly independent, we must become much more sophisticated ourselves in the manner with which we view all this input and sift it in a meaningful way to have true trust.

To a very large degree this is a personal responsibility. We must become involved, make prudent judgments and think for ourselves, then communicate our expectations to those who represent us.

If we do not, we run a high risk of tyranny and that fact is inescapable. 

Our constitutional republic is at war with our unbalanced capitalistic economic system. 

Written over 200 years ago , the constitution is now being shred by opportunistic forces  using  technology and communication to pierce freedom weakness seams in the document that the founders did not anticipate or imagine. 

 

Through the struggles of our times  the bedrock democratic ideal behind that document can only be saved by the people of this country themselves.

Ken Larson 

A Soldier’s View of War - As Current "Conflicts" Rage, Two Continuing Factors Drive The Legacies of Vietnam, Iraq And Afghanistan

Every U.S. citizen from the individual voter to the politician must view our country’s recent, recurring, war-making motives as factors when considering future defense and financial security decision-making.

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Our near term future as a country involves weighty decisions regarding fiscal and national security.  There are trade offs during federal government war-making decisions and incremental funding authorizations. 

We are approaching a National Debt of $37Trillion with a downgraded fiscal credit rating while carrying the financial burden of ongoing support for NATO and the Ukraine war, the Middle East Gaza conflict, as well as domestic program needs.  

A look over our shoulder at two driving factors of our recent warfare is useful as we consider history when viewing our future while making prudent decisions on the principal contributors to our national debt and security.  

DRIVING FACTOR 1 – GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR  MOTIVES:

The motives of U.S. Government Contractors have fostered continuing wars.  Ongoing warfare nets billions in sales of weapons plus massive construction and redevelopment dollars for international companies. They often operate fraudulently, fostering waste, fraud and abuse.   

It is common knowledge that many of these corporations spend more each year in lobbying costs than they pay in taxes and pass exorbitant overhead and executive pay costs on to the tax payer, thus financing the riches of their operating personnel while remaining marginally profitable to stockholders.

I watched this from the inside of many of these companies for 36 years. You can read my dissertation on the subject at:

Odyssey of Armaments | Ken Larson – Academia.edu

Here is an example of how the lobbying and behind the scenes string pulling worked during the run up and the conduct of the war incursion into Iraq: 

CorpWatch : US: Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

DRIVING FACTOR 2 – LACK OF CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING 

There has been a complete lack of cultural understanding between U.S./Western decision makers and the cultures they have tried to “Assist". 

The only real cultural understanding that has existed was in the person of General Schwarzkopf who spent much of his youth in the Middle East with his father, an ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He was fascinated by the Arab culture, commanded their respect and, like Eisenhower, led a successful coalition during the first Gulf War to free a captive nation, Kuwait.  

He astutely recommended no occupation of Iraq, went home and stayed out of government. Norman, like General Eisenhower, knew the power of the MIC. 

Eisenhower’s Departing Speech

U.S Tax payers funded billions on these incursions. The money is wasted due to a lack of cultural understanding, waste, fraud and abuse. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has documented that aspect.

POGO on Iraq

CONCLUSION AND A HOPE FOR OUR FORTHCOMING DECISIONS:

History has been repeating itself here – much like Vietnam and Iraq, the above two factors are deeply at play with a lack of astute learning in our government as we look back over our shoulder.

We must come to the understanding, like a highly respected war veteran and West Point Instructor has, that military victory is dead. “MODERN WAR INSTITUTE AT WEST POINT” “Victory’s been defeated; it’s time we recognized that and moved on to what we actually can accomplish.”

Military Victory is Dead

Frank Spinney, a foremost expert on the MIC, spent the same time I did on the inside of the Pentagon while I worked in Industry. You may find his interviews informative.

Inside the Pentagon: 30-Year Insider Chuck Spinney

I have hope these historical factors are useful in considering our future financial and defense security and that every U.S. citizen from the individual voter to the politician will consider them in their decision-making. 

What Can We Learn From People Who Are Different From US