{"id":214794,"date":"2022-06-13T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=214794"},"modified":"2022-06-09T07:49:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T06:49:15","slug":"how-the-u-s-government-is-controlled-by-its-armaments-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/06\/how-the-u-s-government-is-controlled-by-its-armaments-firms\/","title":{"rendered":"How the U.S. Government Is Controlled by Its Armaments Firms"},"content":{"rendered":"

7 Jun 2022 – <\/em>Unlike corporations that sell to consumers, Lockheed Martin and the other top contractors to the U.S. Government are highly if not totally dependent upon sales to governments, for their profits, especially sales to their own<\/em> government, which they control \u2014 they control their home market, which is the U.S. Government, and they use it\u00a0 (their government) to sell to its allied governments (via the NATO and other U.S.-run weapons-marketing operations), all of which foreign governments constitute the export<\/em> markets for their products and services. These corporations effectively control the U.S. Government, and they control its weapons-marketers, such as NATO (in addition to, of course, the U.S. Government itself<\/em>, which has the world\u2019s largest sales-force peddling specifically<\/em> U.S.-made weapons to foreign countries).<\/p>\n

And, here will be described how<\/em> they do it, which is essential to understand, in order to be able to make reliable sense of America\u2019s foreign policies, such as determining which nations are \u2018allies\u2019 of the U.S. Government (such as Saudi Arabia and Israel), and which nations are instead its \u2018enemies\u2019 (such as Libya was and Syria still is) \u2014 and are thus presumably suitable for America to invade, or else to overthrow by means of a coup installing a U.S.-stooge regime. First, the given target-nation\u2019s head-of-state becomes demonized by the U.S.-and-allied \u2018news\u2019-media; and, then, the invasion or coup happens. And, that\u2019s it. And here is how it\u2019s done:<\/p>\n

America (unlike Russia, China, and a few other countries) privatized the weapons-industry, which causes there to be, in America, profits for investors to make in invasions, and in military occupations, of foreign countries; and the billionaires who control these corporations can and do \u2014 and, for their financial purposes, they must<\/em> \u2014 buy Congress and the President (billionaires can easily afford to do this<\/a>), so as to keep those profits flowing to themselves. That\u2019s the nature of the war-business in a strictly capitalist country, since the markets for war-weapons are governments (not consumers). But these markets do not include governments that the aristocracy wants to overthrow and replace.<\/p>\n

The foreign governments that are to be overthrown are not markets, but instead are targets<\/em>; and target-nations are as necessary for the \u201cMilitary-Industrial Complex,\u201d or \u201cM.I.C.,\u201d as ally-nations are (because there are two sides to every weapon \u2014 its users, and its victims \u2014 and its victims are to be targets instead of<\/em> markets). The bloodshed and misery go to those unfortunate lands, the target<\/em>-lands. If you control these corporations, then you need these invasions and military occupations, and you certainly aren\u2019t concerned about any of the victim-nations, who (unlike those profits) are irrelevant to your business (except as being targets).<\/p>\n

In fact, to the exact contrary: killing people and destroying buildings etcetera (in the targeted countries), are what you sell<\/em> \u2014 that\u2019s what you (as a billionaire with a controlling interest in one of the 100 top contractors to the U.S. Government<\/a>) are selling to your own<\/em> government, and to all of the other governments that your country\u2019s cooperative propaganda (in your \u2018news\u2019-media) will characterize as being<\/em> \u2018enemies\u2019 \u2014 Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, etc. \u2014 and definitely not<\/em> as being \u2018allies\u2019, such as are being characterized these corporations\u2019 foreign markets: Saudi Arabia, EU-NATO, Israel, etcetera.<\/p>\n

In fact, as regards your biggest foreign markets,<\/em> they will be<\/em> those \u2018allies\u2019; and so, you (that is, the nation\u2019s aristocracy, the people who own also<\/em> the news-media etc.) defend them (fund propaganda for them), and you want the U.S. military (the taxpayers and the troops) to support and defend them (using the weapons that you sell, of course, so as to deplete those weapons-stockpiles and thereby create the \u2018need\u2019 to buy more of those weapons). It\u2019s defending your market, even though you, as a controlling owner of such a corporation, aren\u2019t paying the tab for it: the taxpayers in your country are. The rest of the country is actually paying for all of this \u2018defense\u2019, so you\u2019re \u201cfree-riding\u201d the public, in this business. It\u2019s the unique nature of the war-business, and a unique boon to its investors.<\/p>\n

In fact: all of this U.S. imperialism has been enormously profitable for America\u2019s billionaires, and especially for the ones who have been investing the most heavily in \u2018defense\u2019 industries. This has been most clearly and most blatantly so after the \u2018ideological\u2019 \u2018justification\u2019 for the Truman-and-Eisenhower start, in 1945<\/a>, of the Cold War, finally ended in 1991. Beginning at around 1990<\/a> \u2014 the very same period when G.H.W. Bush started secretly instructing America\u2019s \u2018allies\u2019 that the Cold War would continue on the U.S. side even after the Soviet Union would break up and end its communism, and end its side of the Cold War<\/a> \u2014 the \u201cCumulative Returns, Indexed to 1951,\u201d for the total stock \u201cMarket\u201d vs. for \u201cIndustrials\u201d vs. for \u201cDefense,\u201d which three segments had previously moved in tandem with each other, sharply diverged after<\/em> 1990, so that \u201cDefense\u201d has since been soaring<\/a>, it\u2019s rising much faster than the other two sectors, both of which other two sectors (\u201cMarket and \u201cIndustrials\u201d) continued after 1990 rising in tandem with each other<\/em>, and rising far<\/em> less fast than<\/em> the \u2018defense\u2019 industry has. That year \u2014 1990 \u2014 was the time when market valuations on America\u2019s armaments producers suddenly took off and left the rest of the economy ever-increasingly behind. It\u2019s all shown right there in that chart<\/a>. It is shocking.<\/p>\n

Thus, for example, on 21 May 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump sold to the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia, an all-time-record $350 billion of U.S. arms-makers\u2019 products<\/a>, which they obligated themselves to buy during the following ten years, with an up-front commitment of $100 billion during just the first year, so as to make even just that one-year commitment an all-time record. This deal was by far the biggest part of Trump\u2019s boost to American manufacturers \u2014 but it\u2019s only<\/em> to military manufacturers, the people who depend virtually 100% on sales to governments, specifically (in addition to one\u2019s own government), to \u2018friendly\u2019 governments: to \u2018allies\u2019, such as, in that case, to the Saud family.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Sauds\u2019 war against their neighbor Yemen is a good example of just how this sort of operation (profit to the billionaires, and bloodshed and destruction to \u2014 in this case \u2014 the Yemenites) works:<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s war goes back to the \u201cArab Spring\u201d revolution in Yemen, which overthrew the U.S.-and-Saud-backed President, former Colonel and then General, Saleh. Wikipedia says of him<\/a>: \u201cAccording to the UN Sanctions Panel, by 2012 Saleh has amassed fortune worth $32-60 billion hidden in at least twenty countries making him one of the richest people in the world. Saleh was gaining $2 billion a year from 1978 to 2012 mainly through illegal methods, such as embezzlement, extortion and theft of funds from Yemen\u2019s fuel subsidy program.[75][76][77]\u201d<\/p>\n

And, furthermore: \u201cNew York Times Middle Eastern correspondent Robert F. Worth described Saleh as reaching an understanding with powerful feudal \u2018big sheikhs\u2019 to become \u2018part of a Mafia-style spoils system that substituted for governance\u2019.[18] Worth accused Saleh of exceeding the aggrandizement of other Middle Eastern strongmen by managing to \u2018rake off tens of billions of dollars in public funds for himself and his family\u2019 despite the extreme poverty of his country.[19]\u201d Saleh fled to Saudi Arabia. Yemen\u2019s Army installed the Vice President, and former General, Hadi to succeed him. Then, there was a second revolution, and, on 21 January 2015, the Shia Houthi tribe<\/a> took over, and the rabidly anti-Shia<\/a> Saud family promptly started their bombing of Yemen, using American training, weaponry and tactical and refueling support.<\/p>\n

The U.S. government \u2014 like its ally the Saud family \u2014 is rabidly anti-Shia<\/a>. That\u2019s to say: The U.S. aristocracy<\/em>, like Saudi Arabia\u2019s aristocracy (the royal family), is rabidly anti-Shia. But, whereas for the Sauds, this is motivated more by hate than by greed, it\u2019s more greed than hate on the U.S. side, because at least ever since the U.S. coup in the leading Shia country, Iran, in 1953, it\u2019s been purely about greed, specifically that of the oil (and other) companies who also (in addition to the armaments-firms) control U.S. foreign policies. (For example, international oil companies need to extract and sell oil from many countries<\/em>. They\u2019re highly dependent upon the military, though not nearly to the extent that the weapons-firms are.)<\/p>\n

A poll happened to be taken of American public opinion regarding America\u2019s arming and training Saudi forces to fly over and bomb Yemen \u2014 taken during November 2017, while U.S. President Trump\u2019s Administration was doing that. This poll was tabulated on 28 January 2018, and finally published a month later, on 28 February 2018. It headlined \u201cNationwide Voter Survey \u2013 Report on Results \u2013 January 28, 2018\u201d<\/a> and reported that it had asked 1,000 scientifically sampled American voters, a \u201cQuestion: Congress is considering a bi-partisan bill to withdraw U.S. forces from the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Would you say that you support or oppose this bill?\u201d It reported that, \u201cSupport\u201d was 51.9%, \u201cOppose\u201d was 21.5%, no opinion was 26.6%; and, so, 71% of the opinions were \u201cSupport\u201d; only 29% were \u201cOppose.\u201d That\u2019s more than two-thirds supporting this bill to consider withdrawing<\/em> U.S. forces from that U.S.-Saudi war against Yemen.<\/p>\n

On 4 December 2017, just weeks after that poll of Americans was taken, RT News headlined \u201cSaleh\u2019s death means a fresh hell beckons for Yemen\u201d<\/a>, and the U.S. Government\u2019s participation in the bombing of Yemen then did increase. This event \u2014 the murder of Saleh \u2014 raised the Yemen war to broader public attention in the country that was supplying the bombs and the weapons and training to the Sauds.<\/p>\n

On 28 February 2018, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders was the lone sponsor of \u201cS.J.Res.54 \u2014 115th Congress (2017-2018)\u201d<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis joint resolution directs the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen, except those engaged in operations directed at Al Qaeda, within 30 days unless: <\/em><\/p>\n

(1) the President requests and Congress authorizes a later date, or<\/em><\/p>\n

(2) a declaration of war or specific authorization for the use of the Armed Forces has been enacted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On 19 March 2018, NBC bannered \u201cSenators to force vote to redefine U.S. role in Yemen\u201d<\/a> \u2014 that was merely to force a vote in the Senate, not actually to vote on the issue itself<\/em>. However, given how overwhelmingly America\u2019s voters opposed<\/em> America\u2019s arming the Sauds to slaughter the Yemenese, this vote in the Senate to consider the measure was the gateway to each Senator\u2019s being forced to go public about supporting this highly unpopular armament of the Saudis; and, so, if it had gotten that far (to a final vote on the issue itself), the arms-makers might lose the vote, because Senators would then be voting not \u2018merely\u2019 on a procedural matter, but on the actual issue itself. So, this vote was about the gateway, not<\/em> about the destination.<\/p>\n

The next day, Breitbart News headlined \u201cAdministration, Bipartisan Interventionist Establishment Kill Aisle-Crossing Effort to Rein In U.S. Military Involvement in Yemen\u201d<\/a> and presented a full and documented account, which opened: \u201cThe Senate resolution invoking the War Powers Act to demand the administration seek congressional authorization or withdraw American support from Saudi Arabia\u2019s military operations in Yemen was defeated Tuesday by a vote of 55-44.\u201d<\/p>\n

The peace-activist, David Swanson, headlined at Washington blog, \u201cWhy 55 U.S. Senators Voted for Genocide in Yemen\u201d<\/a>, and he alleged that the vote would have been even more lopsided than 55% for the weapons-industry, if some of the Senators who voted among the 44 non-bloodthirsty ones hadn\u2019t been in such close political races. The weapons-industry won\u2019t hold against a Senator his\/her voting against them if<\/em> their vote won\u2019t even be needed<\/em> in order to win. Token<\/em>-votes against such bills are acceptable. All that\u2019s necessary is winning the minimum number of votes. Anything more<\/em> than that is just icing on the cake.<\/p>\n

On 19 December 2018, what survived from the Sanders bill was \u201cReceived in the House\u201d<\/a>, and less than three hours later was simply \u201cHeld at the desk.\u201d And that was the end of it. This was a perfect example of the findings by political scientists that the U.S. Government is no democracy but instead a dictatorship by the very richest Americans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, this explains how the U.S. Government really ignores public opinion and only pretends<\/em> to be a democracy<\/a>. It\u2019s done by constantly fooling the public<\/em>. On the issue of which countries are \u2018allies\u2019 and which are \u2018enemies\u2019, and other issues regarding national \u2018defense\u2019, all necessary means are applied, in order to achieve, as Walter Lippmann in 1921 called it, \u201cthe manufacture of consent.\u201d He wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. The creation of consent is not a new art. It is a very old one which was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy. But it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technic, because it is now based on analysis rather than on rule of thumb. And so, as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The CIA virtually controls<\/a> the \u2018news\u2019 media.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, even corporations that aren\u2019t on that list of top 100 U.S. Government contractors can be crucially dependent upon their income from the U.S. Government. For example, since 2014<\/a>, Amazon Web Services has supplied to the U.S. Government (CIA, Pentagon, NSA, and the entire U.S. intelligence community\u2019s) cloud-computing services, which has since produced virtually all of Amazon\u2019s profits<\/a> (also see \u201cCloud Business Drives Amazon\u2019s Profits\u201d<\/a>), though Amazon doesn\u2019t even so much as show up on that list of 100 top contractors to the U.S. Government<\/a>; so, this extremely profitable business is more important to Jeff Bezos (the owner also of the Washington Post<\/em><\/a>) than all the rest of his investments put together are.<\/p>\n

During June 6-9 of 2013, Jeff Bezos and Donald Graham had met at the Bilderberg conference<\/a>, and,\u00a0two months later, Bezos agreed<\/a>\u00a0to buy the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em> from Graham. Might Bezos have done this because Bezos knew that Amazon Web Services would be getting the giant Pentagon & CIA contract, which would soon start, and he wanted to make sure that Amazon\u2019s profits would now, at last, start as a result;<\/em> and that he would be the person who would be controlling what the readers of that newspaper \u2014 including almost every influential person in and around Washington D.C. \u2014 would be reading in their morning \u2018news\u2019paper? This would be at least as effective for boosting his net worth as hiring a few more lobbying firms would be.<\/p>\n

Another of Donald Graham\u2019s properties is the online magazine, Slate.<\/a> On 5 August 2013, that \u2018news\u2019-site headlined \u201cJeff Bezos Buys\u00a0Washington Post\u201d<\/a> and reported<\/p>\n

Now based on what we can tell from Bezos’ stewardship of Amazon, he’s possibly a dream owner from a journalism viewpoint. It’s of course possible that his intention is to run the company with a mindset of cutbacks on the expenses side to try to milk as much profit as possible out of a business in terminal decline. But he’s famously run Amazon as a deliberately low-margin, growth-oriented firm. If he runs the newspaper in anything like that same spirit, it’ll be an excellent thing for the world, whether or not it works out as a business.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No mention was made there that Graham owned Slate, or that the owner of Slate would be financially benefitting from Bezos\u2019s purchase of that newspaper. Instead, the myth was (as always) being fed, that billionaires buy newsmedia because they want to benefit the public (support \u2018our free press\u2019) \u2014 the \u2018philanthropic\u2019 myth about super-wealthy individuals, that they are \u2018public-spirited\u2019.<\/p>\n

The most corrupt part of the U.S. Government is the \u2018Defense\u2019 part. That also happens to be \u2014 and by far \u2014 the most popular part, the most respected (by the American public) part.<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a toxic combination (the ugly reality, plus the widely-believed lie to the contrary of it): toxic not only for a government\u2019s domestic policies, but especially for a government\u2019s foreign policies \u2014 such as for identifying which nations are \u2018allies\u2019, and which nations are \u2018enemies\u2019 (the issue of war and peace). This type of mega-toxic combination can\u2019t exist in a nation whose press isn\u2019t being effectively controlled by members of the same group that effectively controls the Government (in America, that\u2019s the richest few<\/a>, by means of these individuals\u2019 many paid agents), including all of the Deep State, which America\u2019s super-rich own. In America, one key to the rot is that the \u2018Defense\u2019 firms (and not merely most of the press) are privately owned. They are not actually for defense, at all; they endanger the country; they are for aggression \u2014 profitable<\/em> aggression \u2014 from which everyone except the country\u2019s super-rich suffer.<\/p>\n

Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower started this<\/a>, and it\u2019s only getting worse.<\/p>\n

Like former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. … At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And this is how it\u2019s done. It is done by constantly deceiving the public. It\u2019s done by lies. Lies rule over guns. And guns rule over butter. Lies are the ultimate weapon. And every empire is ruled by lies. That\u2019s the way the world works.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 <\/em>They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/a>,<\/em> of\u00a0<\/em>Christ\u2019s Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity<\/a>, and\u00a0of<\/em>\u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Jun 2022 – Unlike corporations that sell to consumers, Lockheed Martin and the other top contractors to the U.S. government are dependent upon sales to governments, especially sales to their own government. Here is described how they do it, to understand and to make sense of the US foreign policies, such as determining which nations are \u2018allies.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":112456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[867,1161,1104,91,112,70,1594,1073],"class_list":["post-214794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-anglo-america","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-trade","tag-nato","tag-pentagon","tag-usa","tag-war-economy","tag-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}