Empire of Illusion - Chris Hedges [84]
Mellman coined the term permanent war economy to describe the American economy. Since the end of the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current, and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government. The military-industrial establishment is especially lucrative to corporations because it offers a lavish form of corporate welfare. Defense systems are usually sold before they are produced, and military industries are permitted to charge the federal government for huge cost overruns. Huge profits are guaranteed. Foreign aid is given to countries such as Egypt, which receives some $3 billion in assistance but is required to buy American weapons with $1.3 billion of it. The taxpayers fund the research, development, and building of weapons systems and then buy them on behalf of foreign governments. It is a circular system that little resembles the paradigm of a free-market economy.
There is rarely any accounting to the client (i.e., the government and people of the United States) if work is shoddy or produces flawed weapons systems. The U.S. Coast Guard, in one of many examples, undertook a five-year, $24 billion modernization program called “Deepwater.” The Coast Guard spent $100 million to lengthen by thirteen feet the 110-foot Island Class patrol boats. They shipped the boats to the Bollinger Shipyard outside of New Orleans. The eight boats, when they returned, had such severe structural problems that they all had to be retired from service.
The Pentagon, Mellman noted, is not restricted by the economic rules of producing goods, selling them for a profit, then using the profit for further investment and production. It operates, rather, outside of competitive markets. It has erased the line between the state and the corporation, and it subverts the actual economy. It leeches away the ability of the nation to manufacture useful products and produce sustainable jobs. Mellman used the example of the New York City Transit Authority and its allocation in 2003 of $3 billion to $4 billion for new subway cars. New York City asked for bids, and no American companies responded. Mellman argued that the industrial base in America was no longer centered on items that maintain, improve, or are used to build the nation’s infrastructure. New York City eventually contracted with companies in Japan and Canada to build its subway cars. Mellman estimated that such a contract could have generated, directly and indirectly, about 32,000 jobs in the United States. In another instance, of 100 products offered in the 2003 L.L. Bean catalogue, Mellman found that ninety-two were imported and only eight were made in the United States.
The defense industries, like all corporations, rely on deceptive ad campaigns and lobbyists to perpetuate their lock on taxpayer money. The late Senator J. William Fulbright described the reach of the military-industrial establishment in his 1970 book The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. Fulbright explained how the Pentagon influenced public opinion through direct contacts with the public, Defense Department films, close ties with Hollywood producers, and use of the commercial media to gain support for weapons systems. The majority of the military analysts on television are former military officials, many employed as consultants to defense industries,