Calls by Trump for a new ‘Space Force’ could further the potential of an armed showdown between US and foreign powers, such as China and Russia, reports Dennis J Bernstein in this interview with peace activist Bruce Gagnon.
By Dennis J Bernstein
In the few dreamy moments between his various personal dramas and dramas of State, Trump has been floating the idea of creating a ‘Space Force’ to fight wars in space. Bruce Gagnon is concerned. Last Thursday, March 15, Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space said, “The aerospace industry sees an opportunity to expand their profit capability by the creation of a new ‘Space Force’ that would direct the expanding U.S. war-making program in space.
Image of Planet Earth taken from Apollo 17
“The industry,” Gagnon continued, “has been pushing Congress to authorize this new separate service while the leadership of the Air Force have opposed the plan claiming that it would increase inefficiency and bureaucracy. In the recent NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] it was mandated that the Air Force increase their focus on space and make it a higher priority.”
When I reached Gagnon in Maine, he was on the 31st day of a hunger strike protesting a corporate welfare bill for General Dynamics in Maine, where he lives. Nevertheless, he was quite strong and coherent about his opposition to the aggressive and highly costly US program toward full dominance in Space.
And he warns of the power of the aerospace industry to control the day. “Last year a bill to create a separate ‘Space Force’ passed the House but failed to be approved by the Senate,” he said. “Trump’s endorsement of the ‘Space Force’ concept indicates that the aerospace industry has found a strong ally in the White House and the pressure on the Senate to approve the plan will now increase dramatically.”
I spoke to Gagnon in Maine on Wednesday, March 14th, 2018.
Dennis Bernstein: You are on the 31st day of a hunger strike. Tell us about the strike and why it is happening.
Bruce Gagnon: General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works in my hometown of Heron, Maine, builds destroyers for the navy, which are being sent off to encircle Russia and China with so-called “missile defense systems.” General Dynamics is demanding from our very poor state $60 million that we don’t have. They don’t need it, they made $3 billion in profits last year. They are also asking Connecticut for $150 million and they have already gotten $20 million from Rhode Island. I have been organizing a campaign across the state to try to block this.
DB: How are you doing, by the way?
BG: Well, my mind is getting a little foggier, as you will probably notice in this interview.
DB: Why a hunger strike? Why put your life on the line?
BG: I did it for two reasons. Number one, when I came home from a public hearing on this bill before the taxation committee in our capital, I was cursing the whole way home. I said that night that if I don’t go on a hunger strike I’m going to have a heart attack before this is over.
The political reason is that, because this bill is being sponsored by two Democrats from our local community and has the support of the Democratic Party leadership, a lot of Democratic front groups in the state that work on social justice have been told to stay away from this. So it is really the peace community that has been organizing this. I knew that if I did a hunger strike more people would be inspired to get involved.
DB: Tell us about this new concept of a “space force.” What is it, what is it meant to do, and do we really need it?
BG: Like the Air Force or the Army or the Navy, this is meant to be a separate branch of the military. The aerospace industry are the people who are really pushing this. They know that if they can get established a separate entity, they can make even more money. They have long said that “Star Wars” would be the largest industrial project in history.
In an industry publication years ago, they wrote that they would have to come up with a dedicated funding source to pay for all of this and they referred to it as the entitlement program. That is why today we see efforts in Congress to defund those programs and move the money into this very expensive “Star Wars” program.
Air Force Chief of Staff, General David Goldfein, told reporters recently, “The nation expects its Air Force to own the ultimate high ground and to achieve space superiority which, like air superiority, means freedom to attack and freedom to maneuver.” As the United States encircles Russia and China today militarily, trying to bring about regime change in those countries, space superiority becomes a linchpin in that whole strategy.
In the last NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] there was a provision that said that the Air Force had to put more effort into the space operation. The bill passed the House and then was sent to the Senate where it failed, largely because the Air Force is opposed to it, saying that it will create inefficiencies and more bureaucracy.
But as a result of the latest NDAA passing, a division has been created within the Air Force that will direct the US space command and will be headquartered in Washington. This is part of a broader effort by the Air Force to comply with this legislative mandate to focus on space and to make it a high priority. The aerospace industry is pushing hard and has a lot of power in Washington and, as we have seen, they have Trump’s ear.
DB: The seeds for this sort of program have been laid since at least Clinton with the move to try to control the entire world from space.
BG: Most people think of the SDI [Strategic Defense Initiative] program initiated under Reagan. When Clinton came in, he basically announced that we were shutting down SDI. But what people didn’t know is that he basically shifted funding over to a program called BMDO [Ballistic Missile Defense Organization], which did the same research and development. When George W. Bush became president he changed the name again, to Missile Defense Agency. Now we are moving into whole new realms of space weapon technology development.
Obviously, Russia doesn’t want this. They have been going to the UN since the Clinton years begging the United States to join them in negotiating a treaty called PAROS, Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space. The US position has always been that there is no arms race and so there is no need to negotiate this treaty.
DB: This program has everything to do with the kind of negotiations that the new secretary of state [Mike Pompeo] is going to push for [if he is approved by Congress]. This is all about controlling the powerhouses of this new century through full dominance in space. This is what is really going on behind the scenes when the United States threatens North Korea as being the aggressor.
BG: That’s right. North Korea is a sideshow to justify US massive investment in weapons technology in the region. Remember that it was Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who came up with the “Pivot to Asia,” whereby we would move 60% of US military forces into Asia to encircle both China and Russia.
As a result, they need more ports of call for their ships, such as on Jeju Island, they need more airfields as we see in Okinawa, more barracks for US soldiers such as those being built in Darwin, Australia. And now we are seeing NATO expanding into the Asian Pacific.
DB: The worst polluter in the world is the United States military. The US pulled out of the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] treaty in 2002 and ever since then it has been “full spectrum dominance” all the way.
BG: It is really about China and Russia saying, “We want a multi-polar world where many countries are involved in the economy of the world and dealing with the security issues of the planet.” The United States recognizes that it only has about two or three years to try to take down Russia and China before they reach a point where they cannot be taken down.
What Putin has said is, we don’t want war, but we are not going to let you control and dominate space. Missile defense is really the shield the US will use after launching a first-strike attack.
DB: Does General Dynamics stand to gain from this “space force” scenario?
BG: Oh, yes. These destroyers they build in my community are equipped with one of these missile defense systems, called SM3 interceptors. They park the ships very close to Russia and China so that they can pick off a retaliatory strike. They are also putting these systems on the ground in Romania and Poland, right up on the border to Russia.
DB: Has the industry essentially bought off Congress to push this new space program forward?
BG: Absolutely, Republicans and Democrats alike. That is the reality of America. We have been hollowed out and turned into a country that builds weapons. Our number-one export product today is weapons. Then what becomes your global marketing strategy?
DB: How would you estimate the amount of money that is being sucked into this permanent war economy?
BG: All told, we are spending a trillion dollars a year on the military. It is a massive amount of money and that is why there is no money for social programs, for environmental clean-up, for combating climate change. Military spending is by far the worst way to create jobs.
Dennis J. Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom. You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net.
So did Bush who’s defense dept. looked into having tunnel boring machines on the moon to make a base for tossing titanium batons at targets on earth
Trump is like a cartoon character, taken straight out of a B grade movie? And a bad movie at that? And the movie I’m thinking about is “Machete kills, IN SPACE”? Didn’t Reagan come up with this insane, ludicrous Star Wars or Spaceforce idea that got binned because it was massively impractical, ineffective & expensive? What character could Trump play in this hypothetical, Tarrantino inspired movie? Could it be Charlie Sheen’s character of President Rathcock, a name you can trust or that dastardly Mel Gibson’s character of Victor Voz, that Doctor evil type, but hillarously funny character? Stormy Daniels could play the love interest as she already has the acting chops for the role? Haha! Hey just a thought people, you gotta see the humour in Trump’s crazy Spaceforce idea??
Reply, KiwiAntz: Ronald Ray Guns star-wars facility in North Dakota, built by the Army, closed after six months of operation, citing cost ineffectiveness. However, SDI research did spawn some newer weaponry, such as THAAD technologies, Patriot Missiles, rail guns and perhaps, in the very near future, Tungsten missiles launched from near space towards military targets on earth (yet to be proven but entirely feasible).. These developments were not measured against the biological consequences of a fully successful missile defense system or should I say, theory. For example; nuclear warheads contain plutonium, the most toxic substance known to man, a few atoms of it will kill a human host. This begs the question(s), if the incoming warhead is destroyed, where do the contents go? the vaporized plutonium gradually returns to earth, killing and or mutating millions of living organisms including man. Consider this, the crust of the earth receives about one inch of cosmic dust per year. Following a third world war, that cosmic dust will contain a man made, intensely radioactive substance, plutonium (from warheads destroyed in space) . Of course when your leader is a radio announcer (Reagan) or more recently, a POTUS who is a real estate mogul, biol-availability and alpha emitter effects of atomic bomb making materials are not part of your thinking process. At least we had one president, JFK who had some idea, some grasp of the toxicity of these materials when he said at that American University commencement address, I quote him: “For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” and further he went on to say: “a world of law and free choice, banishing the world of war and coercion.”
Humans will soon be extinct, as the earth will rid itself of this invasive species. Until then, the impact of abrupt climate change will demand an overwhelming yet futile response toward recovery, mitigation, and preserving some semblance of order, within the ultimate chaos that will inundate all of civilization. The geo-political schemes and wars will fall by the wayside if they don’t precipitate our extinction by our own madness.
To: norecovery
Sounds familiar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4
To: Independent Comment
SPACE FORCE, a new weapon in the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’, empire, corporatism and global governance brought to you by our sponsors in government for perpetuating the enforcement of income taxes(1798, 1842, 1863, 1913) and public debt bonds(government gilts, liberty bonds, US Treasuries)[1-10] for the sake of god and country,… to propel us, like a silver bird(Silbervogel) to ‘The Commanding Heights’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoWbm8zUG6Y&list=PLOr8q_slscQNLXPfvACwjADhh_uWJczxs
Quote, ‘THE greatest immediate service the American people can render in this war for universal liberty throughout the world is to furnish the means for its vigorous prosecution. This bond issue is the first step. I earnestly bespeak the co-operation of every citizen throughout the length and breadth of the land in this great service of patriotism – The Secretary of the Treasury, Washington, May 2, 1917.’ [8],… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbOCob23pw4
It’s funny how ‘immediate service’ has become ‘perpetual service’ in the prosecution of endless war for spreading democracy around the world, the new phrase for ‘universal liberty’. I’d rather scrap the income tax, sales tax, excise tax, tariff, capital gains tax and lower property taxes, then replace them with a decentralized form of Edgar Feige’s APT tax so that banking, commercial, financial and corporate personages, along with investors, can share more fully in this patriotic call with ordinary citizens of small means. Prosecuting criminals is all very well, but it does little for the wallet. This great effort is all for a just war and our civic duty so let’s say a prayer*. Besides, everyone knows these tax dollars spent on national security (~$1.1+ trillion/yr) will stimulate the economy and create jobs as anyone can clearly see** by the rising stock market and jobs statistics,.. right?!***, even if billions (or trillions) of taxpayer dollars have not been accounted for by the DOD over the past 28 years or so.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E8ucUedyXs
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajtkfglWds
*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0
[1] The Real Great Depression | Scott Reynolds Nelson | 2008
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Real-Great-Depression/23394
[2] The Crime of 1873 | Milton Friedman | 1990
https://www.unc.edu/~salemi/Econ006/Friedman_Crime_1873.pdf
[3] The Post Civil War Financial System
https://www.colorado.edu/ibs/es/alston/econ4524/lectures/finance.pdf
[4] Paul Leroy-Beaulieu: A Warning Voice About the Socialist Tragedy to Come | Mises
https://mises.org/wire/paul-leroy-beaulieu-warning-voice-about-socialist-tragedy-come
[5] The Russian Revolution: A New History | Sean McMeekin | Downpour | 2017
https://www.downpour.com/the-russian-revolution?sp=193652
[6] Public Finance | Charles F. Bastable | 1892
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bastable-public-finance
[7] The income tax | ERA Seligman| 1914
https://archive.org/details/cu31924021092733
[8] War Finance Primer | ERA Seligman | 1917
https://ia800301.us.archive.org/22/items/warfinanceprimer00natiuoft/warfinanceprimer00natiuoft_bw.pdf
[9] CORPORATOCRACY • Antony Sutton | Youtube | 1980
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF7B7BC9DAF570CF6
[10] Socializing Capital | WG Roy | 1997
http://14.139.206.50:8080/jspui/bitstream/1/2906/1/Roy,%20William%20-%20Socializing%20Capital.pdf
Correction to my above comment:
[1] The Real Great Depression | Scott Reynolds Nelson | 2008
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/55175
The whole space program is a scam to make money for those already stupefyingly rich. Meanwhile people starve and sicken from lack of financial support. The way the US is run does not make sense at all, unless you understand that it is all about feeding the greed of a few who have tricked the rest into supporting their insane lifestyles.
As Heinlein pointed out, somebody getting military control of space would likely create an almost unbreakable dictatorship here on earth, at the bottom of the gravity well. For some reason I thought that there was a UN agreement not to put military weapons in space but maybe not. We’d ignore it if there was one. The funny thing is that we don’t have the rockets capable of lifting the hardware up into geosynchronous orbit where they would have to be. The Russians do but we don’t. We’re already $20+T in the hole. This would probably double that. Remember the last time we had debt like this? I do. It was right after Vietnam and not long after that we had 18% mortgage rates……
Yes, and they went to the printing presses to address the budgetary shortfall rather than raising taxes causing that bout of hyperinflation. QE anyone? They weren’t glib enough to call it that back then, but anyone in the Boomer generation remembers the effects which cost both Ford and then Carter re-election in quick succession. Then trickle down economics was introduced which was another abject failure for most people but embraced as a winning solution by a desperate population. Ask PCR or David Stockman about the lasting damage left behind by that stagecraft, which they have long since disavowed. Slick Willy followed the Reaganauts with “it’s the economy stupid,” but then proceeded to gut the New Deal and implement “free trade” agreements with gusto that offshored half the population’s jobs (whatever the precise number is, it’s bad enough). Then came the era of squandering all our resources and revenues on foreign wars under Dubya and Obomber, whilst the rich enjoyed major tax cuts concomitantly, and look, are getting even more under the Donald as he blows smoke about creating Starship Troopers. (Better he just hired Bruce Willis and made a sci-fi action movie.) So, here we are now with a $21 trillion debt on the books (but the real figure calculated to be twice that number, mainly thanks to shady bookkeeping by the Pentagon). Quo vadis?
To hell in a handbasket on a freight train headed South.
because the Russians have asteroids…
I think I’m in favor of creating the Space Force precisely because it will be inefficient and risible.
One of the few saving graces of the U.S. military is its inefficiency and waste: as dangerous as it is, it is far less lethal and effective than it should be considering its stupefyingly huge – and ever-growing – budget.
This is partly because, in contrast to other countries with unified “defense” forces, the Pentagon hosts four competing fiefdoms in the separate armed services, each engaged in daily warfare against the others for budget and missions.
A new, independent Space Force could only aggravate this perversely beneficial situation – in addition to being a permanent target of mockery, which is one of the few weapons we have against the state’s overwhelming power.
Russia gets nine mentions, seven of them in conjunction with China and those seven are in fact the only references to China. We are told three times that the US is “encircling” Russian and China. The Russian Federation, the largest single piece of wreckage from the implosion of the Soviet Union, is assimilated to China, the world’s rising power: “The United States recognizes that it only has about two or three years to try to take down Russia and China before they reach a point where they cannot be taken down”. If the Soviet Union imploded, so can the Russian Federation! Missile systems are being placed “in Romania and Poland, right up on the border to Russia”, we’re told. Romania has no border with Russia and the nearest point in Russian territory is about 700 km to the east. Poland has a border only with the Kaliningrad enclave, which probably couldn’t be defended in wartime anyway, the Russian heartland being about 500 km to the east. Mr Gagnon also makes the absurd claim that NATO is expanding into the Asian Pacific region. Needless to say, no mention is made of Ukraine or Ukrainians’ ordinary human right to an independent and sovereign nation-state (in the European sense of that expression). It all just reads like the classic “let Putin win” propaganda line dressed up as pious hopes for eternal world peace.
I wonder whether we can come up with a “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”-type scenario to trick the entire military-industrial establishment into embarking for deep space on a big space battlecruiser we can build for them – maybe something involving an enormous mutant star-goat.
Thanks to Dennis J Bernstein and CN for helping Bruce Gagnon get his message out. I wish you success in your campaign, Bruce.
I would have thought the Russians would have been well ahead in any space war as they seem to have better rockets that the US. I suppose the benefit of this is that nuclear war heads would be hanging over the US and Europe which would take only a minute to hit the ground after deployment, thus making ground based nukes obsolete. There would be no need for the US and the EU to be surrounding Russia with ballistic missile sites as Russia could drop its payload of nukes from space in less than one minute.
Goood “BG: Oh, yes. These destroyers they build in my community are equipped with one of these missile defense systems, called SM3 interceptors. They park the ships very close to Russia and China so that they can pick off a retaliatory strike. They are also putting these systems on the ground in Romania and Poland, right up on the border to Russia.”
He’s talking Space Force, but I’m not buying it, and not taking it seriously. The Orange one says many things, but sometimes he’s all talk. I don’t think it’s anywhere in the 2019 US military budget either, which is over 700 billion dollars.
Amurdica Absurdica certainly does mean to militarize space. Plans have been in the works since at least the 60’s.
from here: http://www.afcent.af.mil/News/Article/1193635/af-rolls-out-fiscal-2018-space-budget/ we read:
“We must, as the (chief of staff of the Air Force) has emphasized several times, normalize space as a warfighting domain and focus our efforts to outpace and defeat advanced, demonstrated and evolving threats,” said Teague. “(The) increases in investment will continue to be necessary to maintain our space superiority and our capabilities in FY 18 and in the future.”
separately, “The New Nuclear Danger” by Dr. Helen Caldicott came out in 2002 and chapter 7 is laden with quotes like these:
“With regard to space dominance, we have it, we like it, and we’re going to keep it.” – air force assistant sec for space and director of National Reconnaissance Office Keith Hall
“It’s politically sensitive, but it’s going to happen. Some people don’t want to hear this, and it sure isn’t in vogue, but – absolutely – we’re going to fight in space. We’re going to fight from space and we’re going to fight into space. That’s why the U.S. has developed programs in directed energy and hit-to-kill mechanisms. We will engage terrestrial targets someday – ships, airplanes, land targets – from space. We will engage targets in space, from space.” – former commander in chief of the space command General Ashy (and no I didn’t make that name up)
the whole chapter is jam packed with details – and one has to wonder if “The Long Range Plan”, a 100 page document that was written with the cooperation of 75 military corporations calling for funding at levels that guarantee American leadership in space – has been … forgotten? …resurrected? ..waiting on the back burner for a trump to let ‘er rip?
??
That might have been temporarily true in 2002 on account if it being a 1-man race. I seriously doubt if that’s the case anymore.
“The U.S. came to grips decades ago with the fact that its lower orbit satellites could easily be shot down,” Weeden says. “Going nearly to geosynchronous made people realize that, holy cow, somebody might actually try to go after the stuff we have up there.”
Correct!
Space arms race as Russia, China emerge as ‘rapidly growing threats’ to US (2017)
That was how far I had gotten in the essay before realizing this “Space Force” will be the equivalent of “F-35s In Orbit”.
Mr. Bruce Gagnon is quite right about how Big Defense is about making money for themselves, and nothing else.
In my quite uninformed opinion the US is not doing well when when compared with Russian and Chinese progress in space. Throwing money at Big Weapons will probably make things worse.
Donald Trump once again shows himself to be a functional moron.
Lacking any skills at diplomacy or making deals in the complex field of global affairs, Trump falls back on threats and crude moves that are obvious blunders. Does a super egotist have trouble working with others? You bet.
This latest brainstorm of our “genius” President shows how intellectually impaired he really is.
The whole concept of “taking down” Russia and China, was, is, and remains forever, an absolutely absurd notion. I’m not sure what BG had in mind when he said, “take down”, but this statement did not consider? a chemical and or biological warfare response to a “fully successful” preemptive attack by the West. The subsequent retaliatory countermeasures awaiting The USA and Europe, will be found in small vials (flashback, prelude to the Iraq war). During a third world war, the contents of these vials will be in the hands of deep cover agents, and unleashed at their discretion,- anywhere. Further, the fantasy that outer space could replace or even partially overtake, the current “high ground” on the battlefield (forgive the pun) is again, absurd. For example; two, IRBM’s or ICBM’s, one warhead filled with buckshot , released into various commercial satellite orbital zones and the other missile with a much higher trajectory and detonation, to release an intense light burst that would blind or EMP (incapacitate) the military’s grid satellites, fixed into deep space above earth. Yes, two rockets, and the whole global game is over….It’s fair to suggest that North Korea’s Un could conceivably order such an attack- today. These same abilities would undoubtedly, be within the grasp of other major nuclear powers; India, Pakistan, France, Russia, China, UK, Israel? I don’t believe Mr Gagnon was drawing on his own beliefs rather, merely summing up what current Pentagon brass postulates or believes…Oh, and folks, it won’t be anthrax or small pox, but rather some new horrible life form, a congener of man made DNA stuck in a plasmid or some mutated flu virus…brave new world CONSORTIUMNEWS readers!
Visit (on youtube) with the former CCCP’s Doctor Frankenstein or should I say, the four horsemen’s messenger, biochemist and bioweaponeer, Sergei Popov, who worked for many years, at State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, known as “Vector”, and at the Obolensk bio-facility. Warning, nightmares will follow these viewing(s)…
So while the U.S. runs it’s debt up higher it will spend even more money of which it doesn’t have to gain space superiority over it’s predetermined foes. Seeing how Russia introduced an all new convential and nuclear capability to their arsenal, while hardly spending a dime to do it, would mean that the arms race isn’t so much about how much a country spends as it sends a clear signal to how it can be done on the cheap. Ironically the Russians build probably the best lift rocket engines, where the U.S. lags behind in this field. Then there is China, and one can only guess where their efforts will lead too. No, it’s time to accept a multipolar sovereign world, and sign a UN agreement with Russia and China, and draw the line where space is off limits…or is it the outer limits?
I posted this several days ago, but probably few saw it because it also took several days to clear moderation. So, it’s worth another look. My suggested explanations are extreme, I know, but what rational reason can there be for such self-destructive behavior and professed beliefs by members of our species, most of whom live in this madhouse we call our country? I’m not saying accept my diagnosis, but come up with some other plausible explanations.
I posit that there may well be some drug or virus that someone or some entity is administering to most of the world’s population through the water supply, through the food chain or through the atmosphere itself, or maybe through subliminal messaging via the mass media, that profoundly affects the cognitive and analytical abilities of human beings. They have not only lost most of their abilities to perceive reality, analyse facts, reason clearly and communicate effectively amongst themselves, but they have even come to reject in entirety a whole set of values, beliefs, customs and laws they embraced less than a generation ago in favor of a dysfunctional, aggressive and clearly dangerous constellation of lock-step group think. This pathology has infected most everyone from the top to the bottom of the socio-economic pecking order and very few have been left immune to the effect, most notably exceptions like President Putin, Jeremy Corbyn, and a meagre cadre of courageous journalists, scholars and consumers of the so-called alternative news who are perhaps too few and too thoroughly disenfranchised to form any critical mass of resistance to this take-over. An illustrative example of this effect could be seen last week as the still rational and cautious Jeremy Corbyn was pilloried in the House of Commons by the mass of his colleagues who used to stand for reason, logic, common sense, caution, fair play and the rule of law but have now cast that all aside to better facilitate mob rule, a lynching of the Russian leadership and a dismissal of any rights of the Russian nation under international law. Just WHAT has gotten into all these people? Their thinking is clearly aberrant and massively dysfunctional, downright threatening to all life on the planet, and yet they fail to see this, rather self-righteously defending what is wrong and aggressively attacking what is right and proper… or what used to be so considered until this disease had spread.
Now Mr. Trump thinks that by essentially making the threat to destroy the rest of the world using extremely expensive and sophisticated technology based in the heavens will bring all other nations on the planet to heel? To be sure, this sounds like the Gipper’s pie-in-the-sky “Star Wars” on steroids. But has the Donald asked himself, would he or his cronies cow in the face of such extortion by the other side, any other side? More realistically, the whole concept is just a blueprint for the financial ruin of this country, probably days before the planet is irrevocably sterilised in response to such a self-administered catastrophe. The numbers, the required resources, the projected benefits, the consequences of unintended collateral outcomes, the wishes, desires and welfare of 8 billion human inhabitants of the planet, none of these things add up or recommend such a foolish, destructive, insane course of action. The means, the methods, the goals and their consequences do not represent clear thinking at any step of the way. Essentially, the plan, taking into account an American first-strike and a Russian/Chinese response, would result in all modern technology being wiped off the face of the earth will little chance of a rebuild within generations. Hence most everyone alive would soon be dead, starving, freezing or perishing from disease if not killed in the original exchange. How is that a “win?” How is that moral? How can anyone contemplate such scenarios even as an exercise? It is sick thinking and illogical planning. (Unless perhaps you are an alien race interested in exterminating humans and colonising the planet with your own kind.)
So, I ask again, what drug are these people on? What virus have they exchanged? Or what force or entity has parasitized their minds with such self-destructive memes? Maybe it’s a parasite like Toxoplasma which is known to infect the CNS, affecting the brain and human behavior. This goes beyond simple paranoia, because everyone with a functional brain knows that there is no country or even combination of countries that could or want to “take down” the United States. It is not based on self-defense by the U.S. But chances are, if Washington thinks it has the ability and the right to take down the rest of the world, this will only result in the complete destruction of that world. And, if by some chance they succeeded in destroying everyone everywhere but those in America? What a repressive hellhole of a place that would be. What would be the next act in their will to power?
Very well said Realist. You talk about what drug these people are on. Well this goes to that age old advice of purchasing your drugs only from a trusted drug dealer.
I can’t write to much today since we are moving, but there is one other thing more scarier than building a military Space Force to wage war on planet earth from space, and that is a ‘Space Environment Cleaner’. I’ve heard these ideas floated around about fixing our ruined planet from outer space. Well I’m no scientist but quite frankly this kind of imaginary stuff sounds dangerous. Although I do like the idea the Chinese have, and that is to start ridding our space orbit of ‘space junk’ (stuff we have left out there to be evaporated).
I just had to throw that in there, because rather than fix our dying ecology, or work on plant life and soil in order to help provide good drinking water, the elites buy the earth’s last good reservoirs of H2O and sit on it waiting for the great need to bring in a hefty profit for their investment. It’s always just about the money.
Gotta run, but hope this comment appears, and see ya all tomorrow. Joe
I will take a shot at your question(s). To over simplify, either the chemtrails/Fukashima pollution has changed people, or it is the age old desire to want to have friends in the “In Crowd”. We see that everywhere, including right here.
What drug these people are on
http://favoritememes.com/_nw/10/12354781.jpg
“Drug” is just a short hand expression. I think it is entirely possible that most human brains today are affected by some sort of chemical imbalance caused by ingesting polluted air, water, food or various commercial products the biochemical effects of which were never fully vetted. Maybe the agent is biological, like a virus or parasite. Maybe even “polluted” information transmitted over our digital phones and devices have people acting nuts (holding a source of EMR against one’s head all day long must have some effects; studies show that reading everything from back-illuminated pixels off a monitor rather than hard copy changes brain function in subtle ways; it might make the brain more hypersensitive to stimuli and prone to over-reacting–it certainly seems to be addicting). Maybe it’s as simple as unrelenting psychological stress that cannot be remedied and manifests in destructive behavior. Not saying it was deliberately designed or socially engineered, but it could be. The wholesale deranged thinking, with tendencies towards unashamed violence, by people from the top to the bottom of the pecking order begs for an explanation based in the material world.
Educated adult humans simply do not act with the restraint and cultivated reason I can recall from my earliest years. Yes, there were fanatics and power hungry maniacs spewing McCarthyite thinking and secretly harboring plans to pre-emptively nuke the other half of humanity even back then, but they were more the minority and, after a brief outbreak of such collective madness, they were put on a back shelf and mostly held to ridicule, serving as an example of how dangerous hate-based thinking can be. Now they rule the roost. If this is the new normal, we are all in big trouble. Those who used to be the most persistent defenders against such dysfunctional group think (liberals and Democrats) have become the biggest offenders these days. There’s a reason that certainly goes beyond circle the wagons around Hillary. Seems like everyone has become a “puppet” these days, not just Trump.
Realist – good posts. “…unrelenting psychological stress that cannot be remedied and manifests in destructive behavior.” I think this stress (which is evident everywhere, i.e. Texas bombings) is causing at least some of the problems in people’s thinking.
I would also take a look at the level of “dependence” people have these days. People used to be far more independent in their whole way of being. As soon as you become dependent on the government, you tend to take on their way of thinking. You have to, once you’re dependent. Like a child must take on their parents’ thinking in order to survive.
If you are part of a special interest group and the government is giving you special rights, you are obviously going to side with the government.
I don’t have time to go into it right now, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. What do you think?
I got told the other day by someone who obviously cares for me a lot that I should try to fall in line more with the mainstream thinking, that I would be ostracized by the group if I continued thinking the way I do. IOW, don’t think!