- The US has every characteristic of a failed state.
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- The US government's current operating budget is dependent
on foreign financing and money creation.
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- Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests
through diplomacy, the US relies on terrorism and military aggression.
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- http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59H0AH20091019
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- Costs are out of control, and priorities are skewed in
the interest of rich organized interest groups at the expense of the vast
majority of citizens. For example, war at all cost, which enriches the
armaments industry, the officer corps and the financial firms that handle
the war's financing, takes precedence over the needs of American citizens.
There is no money to provide the uninsured with health care, but Pentagon
officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House
that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US troops in Afghanistan costs
American taxpayers $400.
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- "It is a number that we were not aware of and it
is worrisome," said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the subcommittee.
- http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-4
00gallon-gas-another-cost-of-war-in-afghanistan-
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- According to reports, the US Marines in Afghanistan use
800,000 gallons of gasoline per day. At $400 per gallon, that comes to
a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone. Only a country totally
out of control would squander resources in this way.
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- While the US government squanders $400 per gallon of
gasoline in order to kill women and children in Afghanistan, many millions
of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes and are experiencing
the kind of misery that is the daily life of poor third world peoples.
Americans are living in their cars and in public parks. America's cities,
towns, and states are suffering from the costs of economic dislocations and
the reduction in tax revenues from the economy's decline. Yet, Obama has
sent more troops to Afghanistan, a country half way around the world that
is not a threat to America.
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- It costs $750,000 per year for each soldier we have in
Afghanistan. The soldiers, who are at risk of life and limb, are paid a
pittance, but all of the privatized services to the military are rolling
in excess profits. One of the great frauds perpetuated on the American
people was the privatization of services that the US military traditionally
performed for itself. "Our" elected leaders could not resist
any opportunity to create at taxpayers' expense private wealth that could
be recycled to politicians in campaign contributions.
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- Republicans and Democrats on the take from the private
insurance companies maintain that the US cannot afford to provide Americans
with health care and that cuts must be made even in Social Security and
Medicare. So how can the US afford bankrupting wars, much less totally
pointless wars that serve no American interest?
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- The enormous scale of foreign borrowing and money creation
necessary to finance Washington's wars are sending the dollar to historic
lows. The dollar has even experienced large declines relative to currencies
of third world countries such as Botswana and Brazil. The decline in the
dollar's value reduces the purchasing power of Americans' already declining
incomes.
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- Despite the lowest level of housing starts in 64 years,
the US housing market is flooded with unsold homes, and financial institutions
have a huge and rising inventory of foreclosed homes not yet on the market.
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- Industrial production has collapsed to the level of 1999,
wiping out a decade of growth in industrial output.
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- The enormous bank reserves created by the Federal Reserve
are not finding their way into the economy. Instead, the banks are hoarding
the reserves as insurance against the fraudulent derivatives that they
purchased from the gangster Wall Street investment banks.
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- The regulatory agencies have been corrupted by private
interests. Frontline http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/ reports
that Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers blocked Brooksley
Born, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating
derivatives. President Obama rewarded Larry Summers for his idiocy by appointing
him Director of the National Economic Council. What this means is that
profits for Wall Street will continue to be leeched from the diminishing
blood supply of the American economy.
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- An unmistakable sign of third world despotism is a police
force that sees the pubic as the enemy. Thanks to the federal government,
our local police forces are now militarized and imbued with hostile attitudes
toward the public. SWAT teams have proliferated, and even small towns now
have police forces with the firepower of US Special Forces. Summons are
increasingly delivered by SWAT teams that tyrannize citizens with broken
down doors, a $400 or $500 repair born by the tyrannized resident. Recently
a mayor and his family were the recipients of incompetence by the town's
local SWAT team, which mistakenly wrecked the mayor's home, terrorized
his family, and killed the family's two friendly Labrador dogs.
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- If a town's mayor can be treated in this way, what do
you think is the fate of the poor white or black? Or the idealistic student
who protests his government's inhumanity?
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- In any failed state, the greatest threat to the population
comes from the government and the police. That is certainly the situation
today in the USA. Americans have no greater enemy than their own government.
Washington is controlled by interest groups that enrich themselves at the
expense of the American people.
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- The one percent that comprise the superrich are laughing
as they say, "let them eat cake."
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