An empire on PEDs

In the world of sports, they call drugs and illegal supplements that ‘enhance’ the body’s strength and endurance PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs). Well, empire’s need these things too. Boy, has our empire got them!

Page 2 of the Feb. 2 USA Today’s Main Section had two pieces, one a news story and the other a ridiculous commentary. Under the headline Elections 2016 the subtitle or ‘hook’ as we say in journalism was ‘Mega donors let big dollars do the talking in White House race.’ The reporter gave us mere tidbits of who gets the big money and from whom.

A super PAC supporting Marco Rubio raised $14.4 million in the last half of 2015, with the kicker that half that sum came from just five wealthy individuals. Before he dropped out of the race Gov. Chris Christie received $4 million from one investor and his wife through a super PAC supporting him. Billionaire George Soros poured $8 million into super PACs aligned with Hillary Clinton . . . which is actually three times more than he gave to super PACs in 2012 for that election. Jeb Bush, once the leading recipient of big money, is slidng downward in the polls, and in the money coming in, but . . . his super PAC still collected over $118 million last year! And that is just from one of many other sources of his campaign donations. Ted Cruz had a great 2015 in raising cash, and has been off to the greatest start for 2016 amongst his Republican competitors.

Of course, due to the smaller field on the other side of the ‘Two Party/One Party system,’ Hillary Clinton is the most ‘loaded for Sanders . . . I mean bear ‘ of any candidate in the race. Sanders too is raising lots of cash, but his average donation comes out to $ 27. All in all, if you want to move forward in politics you need money . . . lots and lots of it! In 2012 they broke all the records for campaign spending for president, and this year we may see a new record or one close to that one. So much for democracy, another reason why around half of those eligible to vote don’t even bother!

On the top of page 2 in that same Feb. 2nd USA Today Main Section was a commentary from what the paper calls Voices. This was from an obvious hack reporter, Jim Michaels, who worked for USA Today and was most likely embedded during what the paper refers to as ‘The Persian Gulf War’ in 1991 .The headline of his diatribe was ‘Gulf War restored faith in the U. S. military.’ The nerve of this guy to make it sound like this was a war similar to WW2.

Michaels writes: “Today, 25 years after the decisive conflict, about 3,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq—now trying to rebuild its military so it can defeat the Islamic State, the radical jihadists who have seized large swaths of the country.”

He then speaks of how, since the Vietnam War the morale of our military had been low, but then after ’91 “What was overlooked is that the Gulf War was a watershed for America’s military, which emerged from the long shadow of Vietnam.” Imagine that this clown was paid money to report on things! He was one of the myriad of ‘embedded,’ a.k.a IN BED, reporters who did the bidding of our empire both in ’91 and again in ’03, like little cutie Katie Couric, prancing around the hallways of NBC shouting, ‘Marines rock’ after the disgraceful attack on Iraq in ’03.

Most , if not all, of the anchors in the mainstream media in ’91 and again in ’03 sang the tune that the Pentagon and its tool, the White House, played! Many had their ‘ career moments ‘ by being cheerleaders, and got promotions. Of course, commentators who preached dissent got canned (Phil Donahue for one ) for daring to challenge the empire. When the late Gore Vidal was on MSNCBCs Hardball with Chris Mathews and he barely got the words out about Iraq and Saddam Hussein, saying, “Everyone knows this is all about oil,” they actually cut him off in seconds!

The empire won’t go away silent in the night. It covertly helped to encourage what is now ISIL to go after Gaddafi in Libya and then Assad in Syria, lumping them in the same basket as the ‘rebels,’ The empire helped to oust the democratically elected president of the Ukraine, replacing him with a neo-fascist leaning one. Does one have to wonder why the Russians became paranoid at having the U.S.- and German-led NATO on their doorstep?

Thus, this Military Industrial Empire that Eisenhower warned us about is in the process of creating two sad realities: A new Cold War with Russia and another hot war vs. the new threat of Global Jihad. Does anyone realize that what Gore Vidal labeled as Permanent War and Bill Blum wrote about in his fine book, Rogue State, is the need for this empire to have lots and lots of funds go to the Pentagon for more War War War?

We have this new horserace whereupon not one of the duopoly’s candidates for president will even mention that over half of each of our federal tax dollars goes for military spending . . . not even the man they label as the socialist! They dare not! Nor will anyone running for office speak of the 1,000 of our bases in over 100 countries at the cost of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars . . . and we are not any ounce safer for it! Why should they when the suckers out there only care about what the media and the politicians feed them? Those PEDs are strong aren’t they?

Philip A Farruggio is a semi retired baby boomer born and bred in blue collar Brooklyn NYC. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn longshoremen, and educated at ‘ free tuition ‘ Brooklyn College, class of ‘ 74. Philip has written over 300 columns since 2001 and his work is found on many fine progressive sites like World News Trust, Nation of Change, Information Clearinghouse, Intrepid Report, Sleuth Journal, Dandelion Salad, Counterpunch and Dissident Voice. He can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.