taxes

Draft Notice: It’s not just our tax dollars they’re after. It’s our children.

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From the Kucinich Report

‘Draft Notice’ from the Shop of Horrors

Generations of political leaders have eroded America’s prosperity. They’ve exported jobs, supported casino capitalism, funded wars. Now it’s not just our tax dollars they’re after. It’s our children.

By Dennis Kucinich
July 24, 2024

The coming wars are not patriotic. They are the result of the abject failure of political leadership and a long trail of lies stretching back decades. 

Those who control the narrative and push for ever-increasing war as a solution to all ills are leading America, and America’s future generations, into an abyss from which we may never be able to recover. 

Generations of political leaders have destroyed America’s economic largess through the signing of trade agreements which exported jobs and industry abroad. They have removed consumer protections and supported massive bailouts of casino capitalism, and now – again – predators are circling to extract every cent possible from the public purse through the forever war machine. 

This time, however, it’s not just our tax dollars they’re after. It’s our children. 

The military industrial complex, which President Eisenhower so presciently described, today has a death grip  on America’s budget, politics, media narrative and foreign policy. 

We hear a brassy marching band and chowder society beating the war drum. In its wake is an infernal sucking sound as resources are pulled away from America’s domestic economy, into destructive posturing which leads to tragic hot wars and bankruptcy. 

What follows is the hemorraging of our nation’s wealth. Instead of  building things of domestic value, we blow things up around the world.  Instead of investing money into things which help our domestic economy thrive, America borrows and spends for war,  creating a mechanism for rampant inflation.    

America is already saddled with staggering war debts to the tune of trillions of dollars, with daily expanding interest payments, while  our economy weakens, our nation’s cities  crumble and the Middle Class fades.   

America is imploding from the inside while our leaders take us on an insane around-the-world journey of destruction.

We are constantly being fed a false narrative to condition us to take positions in support of U.S. taxpayer dollars and materiel shipped to other lands for fabricated wars which leave us insecure, financially weak and morally bankrupt.

We saw this with Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now with wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East. 

Our  anxiety-dispensing 24-hour news cycle demands constant glutting like Seymour Krelboyne’s human flesh-and-blood-eating plant in the Little Shop of Horrors crying:  “Feed Me!”  

The government feeds the news beast.  Fear-based clicks follow.  Fear paralyzes judgment, inhibits action and empowers corrupt leaders.  Those in journalism who raise questions about the veracity of reports from world capitals are given orders from headquarters, which if not followed, lead to being cashiered.  

Make no mistake, this current system is set up for wider wars. The kleptocratic war machine is in hyperdrive and, in the words of a political hack who was about to get a windfall of taxpayers’ cash for his favorite enterprise, with an expectation of reciprocity:“I can smell the bacon cooking!”  Except now they are roasting a whole hog..

Enter the draft!

The scaffold for a large military draft infrastructure is being constructed to prepare to sacrifice young Americans to global war. 

The first step is automatic registration for Selective Service, at a time when military recruitment is lagging, badly.  According to USA Facts, “There were 1.3 million active duty military in 2023, 41% fewer than in 1987 – – the recent peak.”  Forever wars have outstripped recruiting.  The voracious war machine needs to be fed new blood.

The House of Representatives, on June 14, 2024, passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending authorization bill, which quietly included a Democratic-sponsored provision for automatic registration for the draft for 18-26 yr. old males.  The U.S. Senate Armed Forces committee released its proposal for women to be subject to the same draft registration requirements.  

All eyes on the Senate to see if they will put 18-26 year olds into the Selective Service’s automatic draft registration scheme. Unless this process is brought to a halt in the US Senate, all young U.S. men and women, fully 32 million Americans, will be subject to a draft.

Recent news reports indicate that several Republican senators are balking at drafting women and it could delay the passage of the NDAA into which the conscriptive language is folded.

All young men 18 years old are currently required to register for Selective Service, which manages the draft.  This system currently operates with a light touch. However, automatic registration for the draft  is an altogether different animal.  It will allow the Selective Service System to use the most sophisticated databases to track young Americans. This creates a surveillance system for one purpose, and one purpose only, to make sure young people can’t escape going to war.  This raises several constitutional questions, regarding the Fourth and Fifth Amendment.

Women are currently free to enlist, but are not subject to the same Selective Service requirements.  Women are already prominent in the nation’s defense, as volunteers.  According to the MilitaryOne 2022 Demographic Profile of service members, 17.5% of the active duty enlistees are women. 

The average age of both men and women in active duty is 28.5 years.

Those who see automatic registration of women for the draft as a step in the direction of equal rights are missing something essential.  This is not a case of  “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,”  or  vice versa.  

Here both goose and gander are being led to slaughter, based on…. what?  Politics?  Profits? Hegemony, Lies?  

It is up to all of us, as the current generation of parents stewarding America, to protect our future, our country, our children from such corrupt thinking..

Those who pooh-pooh automatic registration as an homage to government efficiency and not a harbinger of a full-blown draft, need to consider the following scenarios:

First the Draft, Then the War

Historically Americans have not been eager for war. In 1939, an estimated 94% of Americans professed a desire for neutrality at the start of WWII, absent any direct attack on America.   

The first and last peace-time draft was in September of 1940, and affected men were ages 21 to 45. The  government, in anticipation of entering a state of war, instituted that draft, more than a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  The US then declared war against Japan (December 8, 1941) in the Pacific and in Europe against Germany and Italy (December 11, 1941).  

Women were not drafted during WWII,  but served critical roles in a range of national defense positions

VIETNAM: The Lie, the War, the Draft

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by Congress on August 7th, 1964 became the legal basis for the US escalation of the War in Vietnam.  War was pursued due to a fictitious intelligence report of a North Vietnamese attack, in the Gulf of Tonkin, upon US Naval assets on August 4th 1964.   

The August 4th Gulf of Tonkin incident was the whole-cloth fabrication of  the U.S. National Security Agency.  Congress was rushed into a war against Vietnam based on entirely false premises,  murderous lies, for which no one in the government has ever been held accountable. 

Fifty-eight thousand, two hundred and twenty courageous and dedicated U.S. soldiers sacrificed their lives to this cause, almost one third of them draftees.   At least two million and as many as six million civilians lost their lives in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the war, which was accelerated under the Johnson Administration. 

Automatic registration for the Vietnam-era draft went into effect in 1972.  Nearly two million men were drafted. 

Iraq:  The Lie, the War

On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by several hijacked airliners, more than 3,000 individuals died.  In response, on September 18, 2001, Congress authorized the Use of Military Force to pursue those responsible. 

The Bush Administration blamed Iraq.  It was a lie.  Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. However, in March 2003, the Administration prosecuted a war against Iraq as retribution for 9/11, with the additional horrifying, and additionally false, tale that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction it was preparing to use against America.   

Once again, Americans were led into war based upon an intricately constructed false narrative.   Four thousand, four hundred and thirty-one  Americans lost their lives in the Iraq war. With this lie, America was responsible for the deaths of one million Iraqis. 

We learned nothing from Vietnam and even less from Iraq.  It is a condition aptly described by the brilliant historian, Gore Vidal, as the “United States of Amnesia.”  The narrative of those wars has receded into the mists of confabulation. In a state of constant conflict, one war bleeds into another.  When a lie is a predicate, and the scope of the war global and the adversaries formidable, hold onto your children..

The Wars in Our Face

America’s global role should be peacemaker, bridge builder, using diplomacy to settle differences and avert conflict.  But, America doesn’t do that.  It chooses to fan and fuel the flames of war around the world.  

So, US naval assets are under attack in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis opposing US support of Israel in Gaza.  The Biden Administration has kept Israel in supply of weapons and bombs.  The Gazan death toll is now approaching 38,000.  

The US has also affirmed support for Israel at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.  At the same time National Guard units from Ohio and Illinois have being activated and sent to the Middle East.  Israel will not be able to expand war in the Middle East without the United States.

Ukraine has been a pawn in the Western effort to draw Russia into a wider war.  The people of Ukraine have paid a horrible price for the war, destruction of homes, families, farms, and businesses.   But, as they say, about the healthcare system, the money is in maintaining sickness in people, not health.  For the military industrial complex, the money is in war, not in peace. 

If the U.S. truly cared about Ukraine it would not have usurped its neutrality, overthrown its government, coaxed it to attack Donetsk and Luhansk, observe the sacrifice of 600,000 Ukrainians,  blocked a peace agreement two years ago, and facilitated the privatization of land. This is not in any way to excuse Russia for its actions in causing death and destruction, but the causal chain cannot go unexamined.

The escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia is morphing into open conflict between the United States and Russia.  Highly sophisticated missiles, with cluster munitions, made in the U.S., programmed by the U.S. military and launched from Ukraine under U.S. supervision, are now attacking and killing Russian civilians.  The U.S. has promised to send additional  US military assistance to Ukraine for another DECADE.  

It’s time for our country to awaken to the real impetus here, and the dynamics at play, which are now about to draw a new generation into harm’s way. The powers that be know that when young Americans start to die in battle, the country will rally to dive headlong into the abyss. 

Given our recent history, it will not take much for those who benefit from war to manufacture an incident to take America’s youth on a conscripted ride into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 

Thank you for reading The Kucinich Report. This post is public so please share it.

https://denniskucinich.substack.com/p/draft-notice-from-the-shop-of-horrors

To understand why Russians love Putin, you should look back to his first term — a businessman’s tale

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From Fort Russ

Feb 24th
PREFACE by Tatzhit
I translated three short stories that capture very well what Russians think about Putin. To put them in context, I have included my thoughts on the subject in the small “postscriptum” section below. Read my ramblings, or draw your own conclusions.

The first story is written from a first-person perspective, and describes how Russia was before Putin, what he changed, and what people learned from it. Essentially, it explains why even profit-minded businessmen, suffering from economic problems and unimpressed with Russia’s foreign policy, continue to support the current government because of the hard lessons of the 90s.

The other two pieces are from a satirical author, one written about the time when Putin took power, and the other about him later, as the “Tsar”. These two are quite over the top, but I think there is a big grain of truth in them as well – if not about the real Putin, then about the popular view of him.

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#1: A Businessman’s Story
I remember Perestroika well. Marlboro cigs for 1.50 appeared at our supermarket, and we smoked them enthusiastically, sitting in the gazebo at the neighboring playground. The taste of them was magical – far, far better than the Soviet “Kosmos” for 0.70. The future as adults was no longer certain, but also seemed magical through the smoke, like in an American movie. It took me many years to realize why we thought that…

And then everybody was suddenly into politics. Intellectuals all started hating on long-dead Stalin, the Communists refused to compromise, popular newspapers constantly published this or that “historic discovery”. When I returned from the army and saw people standing in lines for some crap cigs from Bulgaria, which were rationed to boot, I first found myself feeling [as a character in a bad comedy, and not Hollywood movie]. But even then, I still did not understand.

That happened later – I stepped into adult life, and understood how politics works.

At one point, watching dumb mugs on TV struggle under the weight of arrogance and inability to form coherent sentences became unbearable. How can those “democrats” run the country, if they can’t even organize their own thoughts? By the time Yeltsin’s tanks shelled their Parliament, I already wasn’t interested – politics turned into a murky sideshow which only occasionally had some effect in real life.

Meanwhile, real life went into full “rat race” mode, chasing money above all, with brief breaks to celebrate small “victories”, ridiculous by today’s standards.

Strolling across flea markets, filled with brand-name clothes all of a sudden. Flashing across night-time roads on my first “beamer”. Endless ruins moving past the train windows, [the country’s factories and infrastructure – sold to murky investors for pennies on the dollar, and immediately scrapped for a quick buck] stretching all the way from Moscow to St. Pete.

It would be wrong to say that we weren’t [celebrating freedom]. After all, freedom is when rules and restrictions disappear, right? There was even a children’s book like this – “A holiday of Disobedience”, [about children who were left to do as they please by their parents, and how short-lived their euphoria was]. That’s exactly what happened – after the official dismantling of the state, it slowly disappeared from people’s heads. Nobody was left to establish order, and the rules were set by those who have managed to steal something big, or bribe their way into government positions.
The whole country played Cowboys and Indians. There was no law enforcement – except those men in blue uniforms who existed solely to collect bribes on highways, and pass almost all of their loot higher up the ladder. Everyone lied and stole. Some guys were dodging the draft, some were stealing from their jobs, nobody I knew paid any taxes.

Yes, a lot of it started back when USSR went off track. But in Soviet times, people still obeyed most laws. They went to official jobs, had apartments they legally owned, etc. Yes, even back then some people bought stuff on the black market and could pay a bribe for a driver’s license exam, but those who did that were a tiny minority. Slightly more people nicked stuff from work, but in general they took something insignificant. Most people could honestly think of themselves as good, upstanding citizens. Plus the “real men” of the WWII generation were still around.

And then, in a few years, the whole country and all its inhabitants became lawless and illegitimate. Getting a fake stamp in your Social Security or visa paperwork became a common thing. You could pay off anyone – the judge, the fire department, the EPA. Businesses completely ignored the government and produced fake financial statements with unbelievable numbers, which worked because the tax collectors knew everything, and were overlooking it for a small sum. “Business raiders” – those who made money by illegally taking over and looting businesses – were heroes on TV. Kids in kindergartens didn’t play Cops vs Robbers – just Robbers vs Robbers [1].

And I was an integral part of this lawlessness. I fudged our accounting books and didn’t think anything of it. I paid wages under the table and casually handed out bribes when I needed to register our semi trucks or buy off a tax inspector. I was kicking out contractors that used my shops to sell their own goods. I smuggled in everything, without a second thought – importing legally did not make sense, we would not be able to compete. I even drove around a car that was imported illegally, and simply bought it back for $100 each time it was impounded. I laundered money via fictional companies, and created legal entities using the identities of hobos from the street. Put forged stamps on forged invoices. I moved cash by the trash bag, and even bought an illegal handgun just in case. I was friends with the mafia guys who were protecting my business, and tagged along when they had “matters to discuss” with rivals.

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