John's book, The Peace Dividend opens with a great remembering of the unprecedented U.S. endless war and unlimited war spending of the 21st century. From mission leap to mission creep, the U.S. Empire has caused a tremendous waste of human lives, plundering of the treasury and the rape of Mother Earth. The squander has defrauded U.S. citizen of the human progress and well-being that other highly-developed countries enjoy in the 21st century. America isn't great when it is number 19th out of 20 in the United Nations Index of Human Development.
John is thoroughly serious about the government owing every citizen a refund for the defective, fraudulent, and dangerous war product that we have been purchasing. John has been working outside the box to starve the beastly military-industrial war machine before it kills more innocent lives.
The world desperately needs an end to U.S. wars, and we want our money back, and a written guarantee that in the future representatives will represent us, and not the profiteers, privateers, and mercenaries.
The Peace Dividend is karma-esque Reaganism in reverse. Ronald Reagan starved to death Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal social programs with tax-cuts for the wealthy, exorbitant military spending and Star Wars. Reagan turned the U.S. from a creditor nation into a debtor nation.
So why is John's Peace Dividend met with skepticism? It is normal to expect a peace dividend after a major U.S. war. The department of war's budget in both inflation adjusted dollars and as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product has declined after every major war in our history, including World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, until the 21st century's endless war.
Historically U.S. wars were paid for by excise taxes, income taxes, estate taxes, and borrowing mostly from citizens. Now the rich have gone on a tax strike. Wars are financed out of so-called discretionary federal spending financed by middleclass income taxes and debt borrowed from foreigners. The rich no longer pay their fair share, the estate tax is being eliminated entirely, and the U.S. is borrowing 5 Trillion dollars from foreigners.
"What is good for General Motors is good for America", said former C.E.O. Charles E. Wilson in 1953 at his Senate confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense. Five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) had just been inaugurated as president. Ike and Wilson cut defense spending dramatically from the World War Two and Korean War levels. General Motors thrived because people had the money to buy new cars. Our collective history is to oppose having a standing army, to disarm after wars and end wartime austerity. The people got a peace dividend in prosperity after past wars. It was expected that the next generation would have it better than their parents' generation.
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