* Change the name on the pig to "Military Industrial Complex" and the cartoon works just as well to illustrate how Congress is brought to its knees by the big corporations that control politics in America today.* Yesterday more than 20 activists from around Maine stood in the pouring rain outside Bath Iron Works protesting another "christening" of an Aegis destroyer. Reports in the local paper last week told us that the Navy will move forward with the DDG-1000 destroyer at the shipyard with plans to build three of the ships. This new, larger version of Navy destroyers were originally estimated to cost $3.2 billion each but the price has jumped to about $6 billion per ship. (The cost of the current DDG-51's they have been building are about $1.2 billion each.) Ultimately the Navy decided that they couldn't afford to build the DDG-1000 but the Congress pushed them through anyway - because, you know, our local economies are addicted to military spending so Democrats and Republicans want all the Pentagon bucks they can get their hands on. The new DDG-1000 ships are being designed to give the U.S. Navy better ability to come closer to "enemy" shorelines in order to have a better crack at intercepting their retaliatory missiles after a U.S. first-strike attack is launched. This will make Russia and China feel much better I am certain.
$$ Update: I have just received a copy of the June 3 Inside Defense article entitled Pentagon Estimates DDG-1000 Will Cost $7.4 Billion Per Ship. These ships are getting more expensive every day and can't really be justified. These cost overruns are happening before the damn ships have even begun to be built! Simply ridiculous!
* I heard Norman Finkelstien say in an interview that one of the passengers on the Mavi Marmara that was bound for Gaza had hid some film footage of the Israeli military attacks in her underwear and the images are to be released to the media this coming week. Should be interesting if this is true.
* Just in case you were wondering, my Baltimore Orioles baseball team has fired their manager because they currently have the worst record in professional baseball. They are 15-41 and have lost two since they replaced their manager. Attendance at their stadium is at an all-time low and at this point I am doing sociological research of the fan base reactions to 13-years of losing baseball as much as anything else. It is an interesting dynamic to follow and I am doing my best not to have a heart attack over one bad game after the other.
Reform won't happen because the internationalized fractional reserve banking system has too much power. Geopolitically, it is a very complex situation, but ultimately we are weakened by are dependence on international trade. Without physical autonomy, the bankers have us by the short hairs. Sure, we could pull the legislative plug on the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, ECB, etc., but because we are dependent upon trade, there is not much we can do, because the BIS, IMF, WB, etc. are calling the shots. Try and trade with an inconvertible currency. Good luck. The population cannot get organized for revolt until they understand better how international finance works, and even then, they have to be willing to accept a much different future to win their freedom from the bankers. The bankers know they can count on our material desires and neurosis for security to be used against us, and the politicians know the same. In the U.S. there is Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, and perhaps others, but ultimately, the politicians are not going to stick their necks out.
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