Economic control

Dear Editor:The President and Congress just agreed to a budget compromise that prevents another near-term government shutdown. The bipartisan agreement terminates unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans who are still suffering from the 2008 economic crash while giving the Pentagon, NSA, CIA and the nuclear weapons projects of the Department of Energy a vast part of the government's discretionary funding budget. The United States is experiencing a gigantic redistribution of wealth. The very meager "wealth" of working families is being taken from them and given to the biggest banks and war corporations who make up the military-industrial complex. The 2013 profits for the banks and corporations are at an all-time high but nearly one out of every two Americans now lives in or near poverty, according to the most recent U.S. census report. Hunger is rapidly increasing in the United States. Mayors in 29 cities say more than one in four people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it. The military-industrial complex is one of the biggest swindles in history and a device for redistributing the country's wealth from the bottom to the top. In the name of "keeping the country safe," the Pentagon chiefs and their friends in corporate America are looting the national treasury. More than 50 cents of every dollar of our federal tax money is spent on the military. In addition to the Pentagon's formal annual budget, taxpayers foot the bill for nuclear weapons through the Department of Energy's budget, and huge amounts of the debt service paid by the government is for past wars and military expenditures. The United States spends more on the military than the next 20 countries combined. This plunder of the national treasury is not to "keep America safe" but rather to exercise social and economic control by the same forces that make huge profits at the public's expense. And now as they fix our elections they hope we can all be so stupid to know it was all fixed by the Supreme Court. Our vote means nothing anymore. Wake up, America. Margaret Hittinger Downey

********** Published: Jan. 2, 2014 - Volume 12 - Issue 38