Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [75]
Democracy is thus ontologically at odds with Empire; democracy can exist in the home nation of the Empire but the citizenry do not control the Empire managed in their name. Secrecy, subterfuge and propaganda are thus essential elements in legitimizing the Empire in the eyes of the domestic citizenry and in gaining their compliance/support.
The forces drawing outsized benefits from the Empire have the wealth and influence (concentrations of power) to dictate the State's global decisions. In any Empire, the citizenry effectively have no say over the policies of their State; propaganda is deployed to stir up patriotism when the rubber-stamp of popular approval is deemed necessary.
Congress no longer declares war, as dictated by the U.S. Constitution; it empowers an Imperial Executive branch with open-ended "resolutions" while the citizenry are pummeled into submission with endless propaganda.
Another way of understanding this dynamic is to analyze the cost-benefit of Empire. U.S.-based global corporations receive the majority of their profits from overseas operations. In recent years, U.S. corporate profits were about $1.4 trillion, so we can estimate that close to $1 trillion of that profit was generated overseas. (Note that overseas production greatly increases corporate profits on goods sold in the domestic market.)
Given that the U.S. Empire works to keep cheap oil, commodities, manufactured goods and labor flowing to the domestic economy, we might also estimate that the Empire funnels at least $1 trillion in direct financial benefits to the domestic economy.
The Pentagon budget is approximately $650 billion a year, or roughly equal to the Social Security budget. The core Defense budget is about $515 billion for fiscal 2009, with another $70 billion for the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and additional funds for Veterans and active wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, these funds include providing world-class health care for 9.2 million eligible Service members, families, and retirees and maintaining 545,000 facilities at 5,300 sites in the U.S. and around the globe. (Source:www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11663)
Other highlights include $389 million to establish the U.S. Africa Command, and $184 billion for weapons systems procurement, research and development. That is a staggering sum which is divided up amongst a handful of large defense contractors, all of whom have facilities spread over the U.S. so the largesse can benefit all 535 members of Congress. These elected officials view the Defense budget as a stupendous opportunity to bring jobs to their district even if the Services do not want the weapons being procured.
Given the large number of citizens benefiting from this spending (9 million active and retired personnel and their families, millions more working in weapons R&D and manufacture, the Veterans Administration, the civilian Pentagon workforce, etc.) and the enormous profits to be made from supplying the Pentagon, we can safely state that the Elites controlling these sums have asymmetric stakes in the game (a topic to be covered in depth later) and thus tremendous incentives to support the Empire's status quo.
From the point of view of those benefiting from the Empire's direct maintenance costs, then $650 billion appears to be returning $2 trillion in direct benefits: a healthy return on investment.
Critics ask what else might be funded if the Pentagon budget was slashed from Empire levels to nuclear deterrence and self-defense levels (say, $300 billion less than the current $650 billion). But social spending (or deficit reduction) would not benefit the State and corporate Elites extracting huge benefits from the Empire. Thus they will defend their Imperial share of the national income at all costs.
Democracy has little role in the Empire's spending or policies until such time as the cost-benefit falls to the