But, we work hard for our money, and we have bills to pay, commensurate with our standard of living, both as a nation and regionally. We can only give so much, and that fact has come crashing down on our heads painfully over the course of this recession, we are still struggling to recover from. We have become a nation more aware of what we give in taxes, and more interested in not spending them on things that are either scams, or that just are not in keeping with who and what we are as a nation.
Liberty, freedom and independence from oppression are things we value and are behind promoting elsewhere - to a certain extent. We know that we have been suckered by wealthy interests into doing things with our cash overseas where we cannot see what is really going on, past what they tell us on the news. I mean, how many times can we watch exclusive interviews with "everyday people" on the streets of predominantly Arabic speaking countries where government crackdowns are happening, and every person the cable news outlet speaks to has either an American or British accent, before we start to see that something is obviously very wrong? I mean, if news outlets from their nations came to interview people on our streets during a crisis how often would they encounter Arabic speakers, or even people speaking English with thick Arabic accents? How often do we encounter them in most places? And we're the "melting pot."
We know the Bush Administration lied to us, and after campaigning on, among other things the promise to investigate the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the Obama Administration just essentially said, "uhhh, nah, we're good," after being elected regarding that. The Bush Administration said they no longer considered Osama Bin Laden a threat in March of 2002, less than a year after 9-11. (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bush-says-bin-Laden-no-threat-Options-open-2863857.php) While campaigning in 2008, then candidate Obama, promised to get Bin Laden and make him the priority. On that score he came through on something neither Bush nor Clinton did when they had the opportunities. It proved new blood is what it takes and a fresh perspective to make the difficult things come through, even when certain elements of the military, the CIA and wealthy interests probably would have liked to have kept him out there milking the whole Al Qaeda/ Bin Laden thing for years.
This close connection President Eisenhower warned us about has led to our being taken advantage of and often lied to. For example, when the no fly zone over Libya was being considered Secretary Robert Gates once said we only use military force where we are being threatened militarily, or where our national interests are at stake. Makes sense right? I mean it sounds good. The words certainly roll of the tongue well enough. But, what does that mean, "national interests?"
By that they mean the money taken in by wealthy American corporations via their various operations in foreign lands. When we are talking the Middle East these days, we are talking oil companies for the most part. There was a time when their operations overseas meant jobs for Americans as they brought Americans over there to work, but those days are just pages in the history books now. Now they hire the cheapest labor they can find form the poorest nations. They don't pay any taxes on what they are doing over there either.
It is not in our national interest, it is in their own interest as far as their bottom line. But, why should we all have to pay for them to be wealthier and wealthier. They could hire private security companies to protect their oil. We should not be paying for that. This is not a communist nation. We do not own the industries located in our nation or based here. They are owned privately by individuals or groups of individuals, and good for them if they are making money and successful.
But you should not be having to take money from your children's college fund, your retirement, your mortgage, investments, car payments or just plain money in your bank, just to make them another $10 million in take home bonus so they can buy gold and platinum combs to use in braiding their horses manes. How is that your business or more important than your bottom line. They try and say it means American jobs, but that too is a lie. We would still need the same amount of people working in the petroleum industries and related industries stateside if British, French or Italian companies took over their spots.
The fat cats may not be able to buy as many Lamborghini's, but is that your problem? They might not be able to hire Jay Z and Beyonce together for their kid's sweet sixteen, but is that your issue? Don't you have more real world issues to be focusing on? "We" (you and me) would not suffer a lick. And the fat cats might be humbled a bit, not that that's our concern either.
People are getting fabulously wealthy from all the foreign bases from the defense contractors providing redundant services approved by generals that have been promised cushy seven figure consultation positions once they retire. We are protecting cheap labor factories in East Asia full of workers that have replaced their American predecessors here before the factories moved there.
So the owners are making more profit now. Well good for them and all. Free market doing well. But using taxpayer cash to provide their security is not the free market. That's government interference, and forcing us to pay for it. If the free market were to truly work, those corporations would have to deal with whatever forces were there in those nations. That is their problem. It is their business. It is another country. They went there they live there I terms of their factory. They made a decision as an adult, it's their issue. They want US military guns protecting them, come to America. Want Korean guns protecting them, go to Korea. Want Chinese guns protecting them, go to China. It's not "our" issue. You deserve those taxes in your wallet.
There are military golf courses overseas that cost you and I over $1 million a year just to maintain each. (http://www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com/golfcourses.html) How is that protecting us from Al Qaeda? Talk about government taking advantage of the goodness and hard work of Americans.
We give money to support places where dictators rule, but are kind to oil companies. So our leaders say these folks are our "good friends." But they are not your friend, or mine. They just help out a handful of American companies with what those entities do over there, not here. It benefits you and I not one cent. Meanwhile we feed dictators' insatiable lust for cruelty torture and oppression. Gaddafi bad? Gaddafi needs to go? I can buy that, but if he was so bad, why was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking pictures with his torture prone son, smiling like a lotto winner? (http://s3.media.squarespace.com/production/92960/5627479/wp-content//2009/09/Secretary+State+Hillary+Clinton+Meets+Nat+-EucUjLEx-Al.jpg)
Why did Joe Biden say Mubarak was not a dictator? (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0127/Joe-Biden-says-Egypt-s-Mubarak-no-dictator-he-shouldn-t-step-down) Doesn't he consider oppression, destabilization and torture qualification enough? Or are their other things we need to be looking at? The same goes for Palestine and Israel. We support both sides financially while Palestine bombs, shoots at and otherwise terrorizes Israel. We support both sides when Israel bombs Palestinians, builds settlements on Palestinian land, steals Palestine's water, hurts and oppresses Christians living in Israel, instills Jim Crow and Apartheid style laws and tells us to go stick it when we say our financial support comes with a set of requirements. We are supporting what is a war between two ethnic groups trying to blow each other's bodies to bits until the other is extinct and saying it is for peace.
What peace has come? Have we as Americans paid for it? Why? Why should we support it? It is not our problem anymore, and they could care less what we want. They want to use us for our money until they have finished blowing each other up. How many more Americans must die for that? What part of that is for the majority of American's credo? What part is really just the kind of thing people that wish to donate privately to in support of a cause they believe in? We have been threatened by Hamas and Israeli spies have been caught stealing secrets here in the US. (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131569&page=1) (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4705539&page=1) These are not friends. Friends do not spy on, steal stuff from and threaten. Bad people do that. Enemies.
Friend or not, we cannot afford that kind of financial support of something that only hurts us in the end. We could use that money here, for education, infrastructure, emergency services and to put back into the savings, wallets and investments of taxpayers that for a long time have been getting looted by what we give towards "defense" and "foreign aid." Our government can do better, but electing the same old faces that have perpetuated the problem with the same old rhetoric, terrible actions (like supporting the War in Iraq at a time we needed backbone in Washington the most) ad slight variations on the same old rhetoric to fool us long enough to get themselves put back into the same old habits of trading votes for being able to stick their hands in the honeypot and roll around in the stuff. We shouldn't be paying these people for that either. While children get crushed by tanks and hit by bombs we too get caught in the middle. What is the price we pay for the deaths of those children.
To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.
