Revision Eyewear in Essex Junction has won a three-year contract with the U.S. Army worth nearly $2 million to develop a next-generation helmet that will apply the “grim lessons” learned in Iran [sic] and Afghanistan to improve head protection, Sen. Patrick Leahy’s office announced Friday.
I'd say the grimmest lesson learned is “don't go fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose it's a good thing that we're investing monies to protect our unfortunate cannon fodder, and it's coming to Vermont, yet I can only focus on the further entrenching of the military industrial complex into our economy as opposed to investing in sustainable industries not predicated on a permanent state of war.
It reminds me of the old Standard Oil octopus:
We already have a lot of tentacles in our fair state, and $2M is actually small potatoes. Thanks to Congressman Peter Welch:
- $10 million, XM312 machine guns, General Dynamics, Burlington
- [$4 million], Kiowa helicopter “warrior health system,” Goodrich Corporation, Vergennes
- $2.4 million, wireless sensors for Navy aircraft, Microstrain, Williston
There's even $1.6M in wool sock sales to the Marines. Senators Leahy and Sanders have also brought millions of defense-related spending into Vermont for General Dynamics and Lockheed.
While I've used the octopus metaphor, one might think of all these grants and earmarks as symptoms of a disease instead. Chris Hedges cites Seymour Melman:
In “Pentagon Capitalism” Seymour Melman described the defense industry as viral. Defense and military industries in permanent war, he wrote, trash economies. They are able to upend priorities. They redirect government expenditures toward their huge military projects and starve domestic investment in the name of national security. We produce sophisticated fighter jets, while Boeing is unable to finish its new commercial plane on schedule. Our automotive industry goes bankrupt. We sink money into research and development of weapons systems and neglect renewable energy technologies to fight global warming. Universities are flooded with defense-related cash and grants, and struggle to find money for environmental studies. This is the disease of permanent war.
…
Our permanent war economy has not been challenged by Obama and the Democratic Party. They support its destructive fury because it funds them. They validate its evil assumptions because to take them on is political suicide. They repeat the narrative of fear because it keeps us dormant. They do this because they have become weaker than the corporate forces that profit from permanent war.
This disease causes the breakdown of our infrastructure, connective tissue and the body politic. I'm all for Keynsian stimulus, but not of the kind that feeds a great, destructive beast whilst starving the rest of us. As Joseph Stiglitz observed:
The top 1 percent rarely serve in the military—the reality is that the “all-volunteer” army does not pay enough to attract their sons and daughters, and patriotism goes only so far. Plus, the wealthiest class feels no pinch from higher taxes when the nation goes to war: borrowed money will pay for all that.
Foreign policy, by definition, is about the balancing of national interests and national resources. With the top 1 percent in charge, and paying no price, the notion of balance and restraint goes out the window. There is no limit to the adventures we can undertake; corporations and contractors stand only to gain.
So the war profiteers (in which I include the financial and oil industries, amongst others) get richer and gain more control over our nation, economy and lives. Meanwhile, we get table scraps: some lucky folks get to work for them, others go to war for them, and the vital government services upon which many depend get more and more depleted as a massive wealth transfer takes place.
This is why we fight…
ntodd