As the phony government shutdown enters week two it becomes increasingly obvious that it is just another of the big lies of our corrupt big government. The announcement that between 300,000 to 400,000 civilian employees of the war machine would be coming back to work on Monday after a nice week of vacation is confirmation of the systemic rot. This thing has always been a farce, another ginned up fake crisis that gives the professional shills in the state-corporate media fodder while the empire teeters on the brink of collapse. The absurd pissing match over passing a budget attached to the revocation of Obamacare - the law that corporations are salivating over as they now have the ability to screw employees and their dependents with impunity as they jettison health insurance costs is just for show. The real business of the United States in 2013 is more than ever war, this was evident when Barry signed the Pay Our Military Act into law last week ensuring that the imperial stormtroopers will be at the ready for whatever war (Syria, Iran) is next on the agenda and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was never going to give up the hundreds of thousands of parasites that provide support at the Pentagon. As Randolph Bourne once famously remarked, "war is the health of the state" and there has never in history been one as dependent on the global killing machine as the American Empire. The reverence for our blessed troops in this country is quite possibly the most telling example of just how fascist that this place has become. In a nice touch and just because it plays well the the rubes and easily manipulated base the House has passed a bill to bring back military chaplains because, god just loves war. Hallelujah.
The partial government closures will also not save money either despite how the wailing about spending cuts, in the true bipartisanship that always is possible when it comes to cover your own ass time congress is currently working on making sure that all of those on their vacations will be able to retroactively collect their back pay. It was just way too obvious of a scam considering congress wasn't being made to cough up one thin dime of their taxpayer supported lives of living large and having all of their benefits paid for while the general population is thrown to the wolves. Speaker John Boehner, one of the most disingenuous and shameless of politicians that I have ever seen, one whose ability to break into well-timed crying jags whenever on camera during his pre-speaker days delivered the sound bite that "this isn't some damn game" on Friday as the spinning continued. Boehner of course is lying, his fake outrage is just a part of the scrum between the jackasses and elephants and the trophy is winning the media advantage going into the 2014 mid-term elections where all of the victorious assclowns will be able to hold onto their positions of privilege, power and a life of stealing money from hard working Americans. It is all a game and one that honest, decent people trying to make a living are losing because of the entitled servants of the elite within the beltway and the insatiably bloodthirsty war machine that President Eisenhower warned of over a half-century ago:
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
We all can see today how that turned out - "alert and knowledgeable citizenry"? That's just not the way we roll here in the Homeland.
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