Military Surplus and Profit-Taxes-Lobbying

The Homeland Security / Military Industrial Complex (HS/MIC) continues.


FY2011 sets record for military surplus transfers to police departments.



30 Big Corporations Spent More Lobbying Than On Taxes, 2008-10 (via EBM)


Good friends sent good links and I wanted to pass these along.

Thank You Mayor Mubarak Bloomberg and the HS-MIC

We have recently suggested that in the aftermath of 9-11, police departments are losing their "protect-and-serve" civilian orientation in favor of a military/ counter-terrorism posture that is nurtured by the Homeland Security Military Industrial Complex (HSMIC) and led by civilians that defer to national military advisors.

We have received feedback that our claim is far-fetched, over-reaching, and myopic. Fortunately, New York City's Mayor Mubarak Bloomberg has weighed in to support our position.

From the NY Post:

NYC is ready to go to war.

Mayor Bloomberg boasted yesterday that "I have my own army" in the NYPD and, if that wasn't enough to establish the city as a worldwide power, added "I have my own state department" as well.

The comments came during a speech the mayor delivered at MIT describing how he was managing the city. Trying to offer some idea of the scope of New York's workforce, Bloomberg got a bit carried away with himself.

"I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh largest army in the world," he said. "I have my own state department, to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the UN in New York, so we have entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have. I don't listen to Washington very much, which is something they're not thrilled about."

We look forward to learning about his army's perspective on the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners, the Geneva Protocol to the Hague Convention on the use of gas/biochemical weapons such as pepper spray, and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We remain intrigued about the Rules of Engagement the Mayor has established for the NYPD's claimed capability to shoot down civilian aircraft on their own authority.

What's amazing is that Bloomberg, who both promotes a domestic military presence and is himself a product of the culture of Homeland Security, manages to make Rudy Guliani seem rational, and manages to make uber-mensch Ed Koch seem a milquetoast.

Protect-and-Serve or Seek-and-Destroy: Are Police Still Civilian After 9-11?

Increasingly domestic law enforcement in the United States has a paramilitary perspective.

The desire to equip and train first responders, which serves both a legitimate purpose and meets the agendas of industry and politicians, has introduced military technology into civilian/domestic police forces to an unprecedented degree. For the Homeland Security-Congressional-Military-Industrial-Complex, it's a market opportunity wrapped in the flag.

When a G-20 type event comes to a city, or when law-abiding citizens exercise their constitutional rights of protest and assembly (which, BTW, was kind of what the Revolutionary war was about) it is handled as a military event. The photo shows military officers on the streets of my city during a G-20, when tear gas, stun grenades, and the LRAD sound cannon were used on peaceful citizens.

Edit 11/18: The LRAD made it's debut in New York City Nov. 17th. "The peculiar weapon system symbolizes the creeping Israelification of America's local police forces and the Palestinianization of all who challenge the predations of a zero tolerant 1 percent master class.       h/t:spork

The seminal difference is, as Arthur Rizer & Joseph Hartman pointed out in The Atlantic this week, that the role of police is to "protect and serve". Who do they protect and serve? Citizens. The role of soldiers is to seek and destroy. Who do they destroy? The enemy, and an external enemy at that.

When military tools, and military training, and military techniques are extended into domestic operations, the nature of civilian policing changes. Most alarmingly, the description of the population changes; what were once "civilian protesters" too easily become "the enemy".

We have a distinctly different set of laws/rules/norms addressing domestic behavior and foreign warfare. Is waterboarding permissible for busting drug smuggling? Can we use drones to monitor political protests? (See, Texas city deploys drones.)

But wait there's more - if we conducted a one-year war after 9/11, perhaps the opportunity for military contamination of domestic police forces would have been limited. We're a decade into these wars. There are a decade's worth of veterans coming out of the service, and God bless them for it, and they're looking for work.

Who's employing those vets? Police departments, State police, and the FBI. It's not just that we're giving military tools to civilian Barney Fife's, who understand that Thelma and Aunt Bee are citizens; we're taking these people out of Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia etc and putting them in uniform in Podunk and giving them the same tools they've used before - does anybody expect that to not have an adverse impact on civil liberties?

Perhaps the two ends of the spectrum of militarized police forces are New York City and Portland, Oregon.

In New York City, home to Ground Zero and the NYPD, a police department with the capability of taking down planes without federal guidance when it sees fit, police are perhaps more militarized then anywhere else in the country (excluding DC).

NYPD is responding to the Occupy protestors as the enemy. They're encouraging the city's vagrants to “take it to Zuccotti”. They used a night-time "shock and awe" display to force the demonstrators out of the park.

It leaves me wondering: who/what are they serving and protecting?

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In Portland, Oregon, the police have taken another approach. Here's the Portland headline: Police on bikes meet protestors on bikes: Smiles, dialogue ensue.

Portland police have taken the initiative of providing security for the Occupy citizens. "If we weren't providing a large police presence this wouldn't be safe," Police Chief Mike Reese said, as he did a walk through the camp today. "The dynamic of the camp is changing. We're finding more homeless, and road-warrior type street youth here."

Mayor Sam Adams is tracking overtime expenses. "In seeing what we are facing here in terms of overtime costs versus what some other cities have faced in terms of overtime costs related to less than peaceful interactions, I'm pleased that our costs will be lower because we have dealt with this in a more peaceful manner than other places," Adams said.

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Is it protect-and-serve or seek-and-destroy?
Are the Occupy protesters Citizens or Enemy?

If we zapped a 1770 American colonist protesting the King into today's Manhattan, would we tolerate his protest or lock him up?

A Countdown of Sorts: Eight Days and A WakeUp

Seducing Your Children At The Airport

Two questions.

1. Cui bono? Who profits? It's an evergreen question. 2. Do you know who's talking to your children about their future?

There's a concerted effort to convince young people to leave home, shave their hair, take a vow, and embark upon a new lifestyle of hardship, struggle, and not much money. They offer welcome and acceptance into a positive, cohesive culture pursuing a noble calling.

Adults are perfectly free to sign up, but I question the propriety of seducing 17, 18, 19 year-olds (somewhere between adolescence and maturity, not old enough for a car loan) into a new lifestyle. When Scientology or Hare Krishna does it, we call it a cult.

When military recruiters target these youngsters, society doesn't seem to object. Not just a job; it's an adventure.™ Aim high.™ Be all you can be.™ A few good men.™

• I support the concept of the volunteer army.
  
• I respect those who serve tremendously.
  
• I don't have a problem with the military; it was very, very good for me.
  
• I do support conscription - if everybody's child was at risk, we'd be less flippant about foreign misadventures.

It starts in school. No other institution gets the access to our children that the military gets - databases of names and contact info, assemblies and career days, all without the parents' knowledge. The school can't give the kid an aspirin without parental consent, but they give the recruiters full information and access without parental knowledge.

The kids are promised acceptance, membership, identity, tradition, college money, and they're going to work with way-cool technology. They can get away from their shit part-time job, their family and step-parents, etc. Recruiters are selling youngsters their own dreams, using sophisticated psychology, persuasion, and marketing to induce them to sign away four to six years.

The military has a lot of way-cool stuff. Fighter jets, sniper rifles, night vision, radios and laptops. It's powerfully attractive to an 18-year old working an entry-level job and used to playing shooter games.

There is no sexier recruiting tool than the military airshow, and in regions that produce a lot of recruits the military spares no expense. Fighter jets, attack helicopters, parachutes, humvees, virtual reality - for an 18-year old it's crack cocaine, instant acceptance into the big leagues, just sign here. For the military, it's an investment that works.

Why does the military sponsor airshows? Who benefits?
Who's talking to your children about their future - on Facebook, the web, at school?

Military Industrial Complex : 50th Birthday

Today is a day of remembrances, among them President Eisenhower's farewell speech given in the last days of his administration, 50 years ago today, Jan. 17, 1961. The full text of the speech is online. Here's a section of the speech I'd like to consider:

But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual --is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Eisenhower chose to identify two threats: the military-industrial complex, and the power of federal contracts in driving research and the economy. These two threats have become one - federal contracts and a national economy driven by the military-industrial complex.

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While the phrase "military-industrial complex" has endured, it's not the only formulation of a name for this particular creature.

The phrase began as "war-based" industrial-congressional complex before the word military was inserted in later drafts.^* Later the president chose to remove the word congressional in order to placate members of the legislative branch.

Linguist Noam Chomsky has suggested that "military-industrial complex" is a misnomer because (as he considers it) the phenomenon in question "is not specifically military."^* He claims, "There is no military-industrial complex: it's just the industrial system operating under one or another pretext (defense was a pretext for a long time)."

Norman Solomon has described the Military-Industrial-Media Complex. He has accused the military-industrial-media complex of using their media resources to promote militarism, and offers this example regarding NBC News:

"General Electric (which owns NBC) is a subcontractor for the Tomahawk cruise missile and Patriot II missile both of which were used extensively during the Persian Gulf War. General Electric also manufactures components for the B-2 stealth bomber and B-52 bomber and the E-3 AWACS aircraft which were also used extensively during the conflict. During Gulf War I, General Electric received $2 billion dollars in defense contractors related to weapons which would be used in Gulf War I and Gulf War II."

Chomsky moves further to say that the role of the media in the modern economy is to "manufacture consent" in favor of industry within the democracy. Chomsky identifies five factors that entice media to manufacture consent for industry; his fifth factor was The Cold War, and Chomsky says that role is now performed by the Global War On Terror.

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We have seen multiple situations where government contracts subsidize industry R&D; overruns are paid for and blamed on the government, not the contractor; and contractors influence the legislators that set government priorities. It becomes a self-licking ice-cream cone. You would never hire a contractor for your house with this arrangement.



Two recent news stories describe the current state of the military-industrial complex: the first is the Washington Post series, "Top Secret America", exposing the way that industry in the guise of contractors and manufacturers has turned 9/11 into a profit center.

Another recent military-industrial complex news story is the decision by the Dept. of Homeland Security (which is, itself, a MIC construct) to shut down development of a high-tech virtual wall along the American-Mexican border, covered here by the NY Times, and here by the Wall Street Journal. The government has spent more than $1 Billion dollars to end up without what they paid for. The primary contractor, Boeing, is an excellent example of the military-industrial complex: they over-promised, under-delivered, they still get paid and make money, they aren't held accountable, and they're bidding for new work next month.

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When I think of corruption I think of sweetheart deals on road projects and criminals with influence who walk away from charges, but that's penny-ante stuff compared to the military industrial complex.

What amazes me is that Eisenhower saw it coming, warned us about it, and it happened anyway.

Of course, there's very little new under the sun (VLNUS). Eisenhower said his piece in 1961; USMC Major General Smedley Butler (winner of two Medals of Honor) described the same thing in the 1930s with his speech and book, War Is A Racket.

Happy 50th Birthday, Military Industrial Complex.

related: Sure, They Can Cancel a Big Defense Project re the A12

Strand Theater, Zelienople, this weekend: The Iron Giant

Zelionople's Strand Theater, a completely modern theater housed in the historic bricks of a 1914 movie house, is a favorite of mine. This weekend they're showing a gem, "The Iron Giant".

Wiki: "The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated scifi based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man. Hogarth, a lonely boy raised by his widowed mother, discovers a giant iron man which fell from space. Hogarth teams up with his beatnik buddy Dean to keep an FBI agent and the military from destroying the Giant."

Although the drama is set in 1957 within the context of the Cold War, the tension between the government-military-industrial complex and truth-love-peace gang is straight out of the 1968 zeitgeist in which it was written (and all that that implies).

It avoids being preachy, it's quite funny and a good entertainment. This is really an excellent movie for younger audiences, the people that bring them, or students of the 60's.

From the Strand website:
     Friday, July 9 7:30pm
     Saturday, July 10: 7:30pm
     Sunday, July 11 Matinee: 2:00pm
     Tickets: $5 each, $4 for Sr. Citizens 60+

For additional info call The Strand Theater at 724.742.0400

Twitter, Nokia Siemens, and the Iran Mullahs

The last week has been reported as a "Twitter Revolution" in Iran. Partisans who do not believe the reported election results are protesting in the streets. There are videos of crowds facing police.

Sometimes revolutions hinge on a new technology, embraced by the challenger and under-appreciated by the incumbents. For instance, people believe that the printing press led to the Protestant Reformation. Others look at the anonymous and widespread communication afforded by the Web and wonder if the Internet, in a similar way, leads to the Islamic Reformation.

The Revolution will be Tweeted

This protest's new reported gadget is Twitter, with people posting 140-character text messages that answer the question, "What are you doing now?" Fox News reports, Iranian Protesters Cling to Twitter as Key Lifeline Amid Crackdown.

So there are Tweets reporting events. Let's parse that, and I'd like to sidetrack into a personal story.

Once upon a time, on a winter night, I wanted to teach my son a lesson about critical thinking. He sat with me while I spoofed his school's email server and sent out a note appearing to come from the principal, appearing to go to all the parents, but actually only going to my wife's email.

We sat together, watching my Wife surf the web, and in a few minutes we heard the "you've got mail" chime. She read the email - which said, the boiler's exploded, no school tomorrow, please don't call the school we're trying to keep the line open, we don't have all the email addresses so please call your friends and spread the word". As we watched, my Wife said, hey good news, and reached for the phone to call her buddy Carmella.

We interrupted her and explained that it was just a demonstration. What I wanted to show my son was that you can't believe something just because it's on a screen. Unfortunately, the lesson he took away was how cool it is to spoof an email server. Sigh.

So there are Tweets reporting events. Actually, there are text messages introduced into a network purporting to tell a story. There are multiple groups with a variety of stories they'd like to put in front of the American public. The Twitter network is easily entered, and there's no verification of who's who.

Some Westerners have tried to support the "tweeters" by hosting a Tor proxy server on their own computers that would disguise an Iranian's IP address. Of course, this also allowed any miscreant who wanted to pose as an Iranian tweeter to boldly proclaim their false message. Other westerners have set their own computer and phone settings to the Tehran time-zone, hoping to produce a flood of Tehran-timed tweets to make the genuine article untrackable. They also have the unintended effect of rendering phony tweets indistinguishable from the real ones.

Some people believe that the so-called Twitter Revolution is a domestic US event, being fed by inaccurate tweets sponsored by a third government. What third government has a motivation for making Americans and the American media space believe that the Iranian people are tired of the regime? Some say Israel has motive, method, and opportunity. This sort of manuever is well within the normal range of False Flag operations. In a way, it's sort of an anti-FUD campaign, hoping to instill confidence and certainty that the Iranian population desires to be freed of the reigning Mullahs.

Others contend that the tendency to re-tweet interesting messages results in a inordinately high noise-to-signal ratio; there may only be 45 Iranians twittering, with a thousand Americans retweeting. Check out this Cyberwar Guide for Iranian Elections written for domestic US consumption.

All you know when you see an electronic message, is that somebody (motivated by self-interest) wants you to accept it and act on it. We really don't know what the twitter message traffic is, other than great advertising for Twitter - which, by the way, is not a profitable business.


Technology is never ethical; it can cut both ways. When the timeframe of innovation was long, a technology advantage might be a sustaining advantage - think of archers against horsemen, or armor against infantry. When the timeframe of innovation is short, as it is today, the advantage is fleeting and may be quickly reversed by the side with more infrastructure and resources.

Nokia Siemens Networks and the Mullahs

There are reports that the Mullahs have an impressive array of technology to track tweets within their borders, and are simply allowing the logging programs enough time record the IP addresses of dissidents. The IP addresses can be matched to email header info, and message content can be identified using deep packet inspection. They may be giving the opposition time to hang themselves. There may be knocks on doors in the near future.

When question about the capabilities that Nokia-Siemens-Networks has delivered to the Iranian regime, their spokesman said that the company “does have a choice about whether to do business in any country” but said, “We believe providing people, wherever they are, with the ability to communicate is preferable to leaving them without the choice to be heard.” Ahh, George Orwell's Newspeak still lives.

Very Little New Under The Sun (VLNUS)

Current tech news reports that Nokia-Siemens has provided Iran with the technology to track protesters. We should not be shocked; the military-industrial complex is not known for an ideology other than profits. In the run-up to World War II, IBM provided the Nazis with technology to track Jews, and also sold the Nazis systems to keep the trains to the death camps running efficiently.

Tom Watson's IBM and the Nazis

CNET writes, Edwin Black's book "IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation" argues that information technology--in the form of IBM's Hollerith punch-card machines--provided the Nazis with a unique and critical tool in their task of cataloguing and dispatching their millions of victims.

Black attempts to establish that IBM didn't merely vend its products to Hitler--as did many American companies--but maintained a strategic alliance with the Third Reich in which it licensed, maintained and custom-designed its products for use in the machinery of the Holocaust.


IBM has responded to questions about its relationship with the Nazis largely by characterizing the information as old news. "The fact that Hollerith equipment manufactured by (IBM's German unit) Dehomag was used by the Nazi administration has long been known and is not new information," IBM representative Carol Makovich wrote in an e-mail interview. "This information was published in 1997 in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing and in 1998 in Washington Jewish Week."

In a CBS report, IBM spokeswoman Carol Malkovich said, "We are a technology company, we are not historians". That line is breathtaking in its chutzpah, and it could be used by arrogant blackguards everywhere. "I am a (activist, leader, visionary); we are not historians" -- this might be said by Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, etc.

From the Village Voice: Custom-designed, IBM-produced punch cards, sorted by IBM machines leased to the Nazis, helped organize and manage the initial identification and social expulsion of Jews and others, the confiscation of their property, their ghettoization, their deportation, and, ultimately, even their extermination.

Recently discovered Nazi documents and Polish eyewitness testimony make clear that IBM's alliance with the Third Reich went far beyond its German subsidiary. A key factor in the Holocaust in Poland was IBM technology provided directly through a special wartime Polish subsidiary reporting to IBM New York, mainly to its headquarters at 590 Madison Avenue. And that's how the trains to Auschwitz ran on time.

My point is not that Nokia-Siemens are feckless, mercenary, and amoral businesses, trading with America's enemies. My point is that the entire information-industrial complex is feckless, mercenary, and amoral. Probably the main reason it's not a US firm that sold the technology to the Mullahs is that American companies supplied the previous strongman, Shah Pahlavi, and the locals haven't quite gotten over that yet.