MEDIA ROOTS – The term “military-industrial complex” was originally coined by President Eisenhower in his final address as Commander-In-Chief and has since become a foreshadowing declaration to a country that may have lost its moral compass in pursuit of profits. “God help this country,” the President warned just a few weeks prior to this speech, “when someone sits in this chair who doesn’t know the military as well as I do.” Now it seems, with an annual defense budget of well over one trillion dollars, it has become a civic duty for all Americans to inform their peers of this misplaced power.

As the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, the coalition that defeated the Nazi regime, “Ike” was directly responsible for planning and commandeering the invasion of North Africa and France. Having honorably served in the United States Army for nearly four decades, Ike foresaw a not-so-distant future with the United States held prisoner to a tyrannous warfare industry.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Eisenhower was warning of the emergence of a developing element in society that must continuously be checked. The repercussions of failing to do so could ultimately alter the very foundations of human society. But was the career military officer just being dramatic during his last days in office?

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.”

The future of American livelihoods were viewed to be at stake. What Ike was worried about was an America where citizens would continue to make their living from war. He was afraid that if future Americans continue to receive their paychecks directly from the military-industrial complex, then war would be here to stay.  

“Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.”

Disappointed, Ike was afraid Americans would continue to support making war a way of life – affecting the citizenry spiritually – and result in a fascist society similar to that which Hitler had created. He worried that a militaristic fascist state would evolve with an abnormally-increased militaristic culture. He feared an ongoing global war – one that could ultimately destroy humanity – would continue as defense contractors profit from weaponry creation and distribution.

Now, more than fifty years later, have Eisenhower’s worst fears been actualized?

Tom Ball is a guest contributor for Media Roots.

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When President Eisenhower addressed the nation with three days left in his presidency,

he warned of the dangerous complex that exists between military might and corporate profits.

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Photo provided by Flickr user Infrogmation.

MEDIA ROOTS — If you’ve taken Economics 101, you may have had the same realisation I did when the course reached the part where the USA, for example, goes off the gold standard and the dollar becomes a purely fiat currency with no gold or anything tangible backing it.  When the issues of the business cycle arise, the inherent boom and bust cycles of our capitalist system, and the citizenry, economists, and legislators face the questions of what to do about those recurrent economic recessions, conventional economics says we must cut spending and raise taxes. 

And, of course, those actions will be undertaken on the backs of the working-class and in favour of the ruling-class with regressive taxes and budget cuts.  Yet, one common sense solution was obvious given the USA’s fiat (or sovereign) currency:  Why doesn’t government simply print (or issue) more money, so small businesses can operate, hospitals and schools can be well-funded and accessible to all, and so on?  But our academic and civic culture has been so indoctrinated by neoclassical economic dogma the immediate rebuttal, not open for debate, simply insists that would be inflationary.  Yet, commercial banks create credit currency all the time, but neoclassical economics doesn’t decry those commercial activities as inflationary.

Thus, many of us have been impressed by the Modern Money Theory (MMT) school of political economics, which empirically confirms such common sense ideas as valid.  Media Roots featured Guns and Butter broadcasts of the recent MMT Summit in Rimini, Italy.  Particularly, Dr. Stephanie Kelton’s presentations explain what money actually is, how it works today, and how MMT presents viable alternatives to the fiscal austerity now being imposed on Europe and being proposed for the USA by the same banking and financial elites.  In a new article published at New Econonomic Perspectives, J.D. Alt uses the children’s game of Monopoly to help us rethink its objective as well as conventional notions of money, banking, and finance.  Alt helps us understand why the USA is not broke and fiscal austerity is not inevitable.

Messina

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NEW ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES — Why does it seem like there isn’t enough money to pay for the things we really need? The headlines are filled with stories about our nation’s “debt problem” and dire warnings about our impending “bankruptcy.” As an architect who fills his waking hours thinking up all kinds of wonderful things we could be building, I’m alarmed by the idea there isn’t enough money to pay for any of them. Before wasting more time dreaming, I had to find out: Is it really true? Are we reallytoo poor to put America back to work making and building the things we need to maintain a prosperous nation?

Searching for an answer, I discovered a small (but growing) group of economists (see here, here, here, here, here, here) who represent an emerging school of thought known as “modern monetary theory” (MMT). These men and women are valiantly trying to make us all understand a paradigm shift that occurred some forty years ago, when the world abandoned the gold standard. Their key insight shocked me: A sovereign government is never revenue constrained when it is the Monopoly issuer of its own pure fiat currency; it has all the money that’s needed to put its citizens to work building anything—and providing any service—that is desired by the public (provided the real resources are available). Even more remarkable, sovereign “deficits” in the fiat currency are just the accounting record of the surpluses that have been injected into the private economy. Eliminating the sovereign currency deficit by imposing austerity will not make the economy healthier; it will, in effect, bankrupt the citizens!

If this seems to defy logic, stay with me for just a few minutes. I’m going to propose a simple exercise that will help you “see” this reality for yourself. The exercise is simply that everyone join me in a familiar game of Monopoly. By the end of the game, I hope to convince you that MMT is correct and that we could be doing better, much better – for ourselves and future generations—if we just understood and took ad vantage of our modern monetary system.

Read more about Playing Monopolis Monopoly: An inquiry into why we are making ourselves so miserable.

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Photo by flickr user Enabling Structures NPG

MEDIA ROOTS – Like a misplaced time capsule that was never buried, one quaint town in Florida harkens back to an old-world fishing village on the Aegean Sea, a place where life slowly drips.  Situated on the west central Gulf coast, Tarpon Springs might be the last bastion of unadulterated Greek culture in America.  Attracted by the lucrative sponge fishing trade, Greeks began inhabiting the area over 100 years ago.  The sponges have since disappeared and the docks have been reappropriated to sell schlock beach souvenirs, but what remains is the U.S.’s highest proportion of Greek-Americans, and their heritage.  Not too far from the well-worn tourist path in town, a narrow street gently curves through the neighborhood, leading to a couple of Greek social clubs. 

Cushy clouds stretch across the day’s powder blue sky as the sun beams through saltwater scented air.  In front of one of the clubs, middle aged men loiter about smoking cigarettes and talking in a jovial manner.  At another club across the street, men play cards, watch Greek soccer on TV and drink the heavy sludge known as Greek coffee.  It doesn’t take long in either group to find someone willing to discuss the trials currently plaguing Greece.  They pause with a glint of curiosity in their eyes, confer for a few moments in Greek, then elect the best available English speaker to voice impressions and ideas not vetted in most coverage regarding the modern Greek drama.  Demetrios Dounakis, a cheery, balding man with family still in Greece, has lived in America since 1971.  Another, Stavros Bairaktaris, with salt-and pepper-hair and wandering, contemplative eyes, has lived in the U.S. for four years.  Now, both call Tarpon Springs home.  Their views as expatriates cast new light onto the troubles of the Greek people. 

After some alpha male posturing and tough talk from Bairaktaris, he begins to speak freely.  First, he paints a beautiful picture of Greece: the beaches, the small towns, the home and farm handed down to him from his father.  His eyes scan the blue infinity of the skies as he recalls lovely details.  In short time, however, his nostalgia turns to contempt, at the subject of the debt crisis.  Bairaktaris’ voice, when speaking about Greek prosperity- or lack of it- churns in heavily accented, slightly broken English.  “Why they surprised?”  Upset by the lack of historical context that the media and sympathizers display, he continues, “Greece like this, Greece built like this, goes back to father’s place, back my grandfather’s place: same, same, same.”  Evidently the Greek crisis is multi-textured; quick forgiveness, outpourings of sympathy, and emotional lifelines weren’t going to be handed out here.  Instead Bairaktaris and Dounakis did their best to tease apart the complex layers of culpability, starting at the top.

The current prime minister of Greece was never elected.  Rather, Lucas Papademos, a technocrat, was appointed to the position in 2011 thanks to his prior experience as Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Vice President of the European Central Bank, and Governor of the Bank of Greece, where he oversaw the transition from the drachma to the euro.  Dounakis didn’t have much to say about Papademos specifically, but he didn’t withhold any feelings regarding political responsibility for the crisis.

For starters, Demetrios didn’t support the switch to the euro, and doesn’t think bailouts will do Greece any good.  In his view, Papademos “does whatever the EU tell him and they don’t care about the people,” and furthermore, the European Union (EU) supports the current Greek government and is therefore partially responsible for the crisis.  Dounakis identifies the EU along with the United States as “big powers”- the real bosses- and claims that the Greek bailout and austerity program is going as planned from American shores.  “If EU and USA weren’t here this [the corrupt Greek] government is gone long time ago.”  Worse, it seems, is that if things continue as they are, nothing can be changed.  His ongoing charisma turned into a stinging assessment.

“Have you ever seen so many demonstrations in your life,” Dounakis asks, his eyes narrowing.  “They cut down wages, cut down their social security, they cut down everything.  You know so that way the big sharks make more money.”  His reference to banksters and financial hustlers swarming the waters of Greece in a feeding frenzy reflects a fear that “Greece is going to be destroyed completely.  This is bankruptcy right now no matter what.”  Dounakis reiterates how the bailout money is not going to the Greek people, but to those “big sharks,” angered that the money designated for the people, won’t make it past the pockets of a corrupt government and an entrenched class of civil servants.

Bairaktaris lays much of the blame at the feet of the latter group.  “You know somebody, you have [a way into] the system.  You get 3,000 euros [a month for] the rest of your life; you never work; you never get fired; you get all this kind of stuff.  This is not today.  This is from 1930s.”  Bairaktaris’ frustration highlights American criticisms of Europe’s inflexible labor forces feeding at the trough of socialist largesse.  This doesn’t seem to be new either, rather institutionalized nepotism and cronyism.  “Any office you go, the police, everybody is like a president.  You have no law.  I wish they could change this,” he laments.  Bairaktaris continues his pointed critique of Greek civil servants, saying they “smoke a cigarette, take a break; ‘We closed today.’  Twelve o’clock in the afternoon!”  He juxtaposes the plight of an elderly lady, who might receive a 300 euro a month social security benefit while having to pay 700 euros in property tax, with a civil servant who gets 2,000 euros a month to “do nothing.” 

Stories of tax evasion in Europe are common and make the endeavor sound like a national pastime in some countries.  An inability to levy equal taxes on the Greeks surfaced as a common complaint.  Bairaktaris made a point of this when he summed up the attitude of the Greek elite:  “You don’t pay no taxes, you rich, you control everything.”  Dounakis reacted more vehemently to the subject; a lack of justice, fairness and shared sacrifice percolated from his anger.  “Americans have best system if you are millionaire.  You gotta pay no matter what…In Greece, when you millionaire, nothing happens!” he exclaims with a hearty laugh.  Contrasted with this is his idealized view of American tax collection:  “They gonna cut your balls if you don’t pay in the U.S.”  Perhaps Greece and America have more in common than Dounakis realizes.  He unknowingly exposes more similarities, saying of the toothless, Greek tax collection authority “The big corporations – [they] let ‘em free you know.”  The captains of industry in Greece “owe millions to the government and do nothing,” Dounakis concludes, shrugging his shoulders.  Unfortunately, for all the problems he can diagnose, his remedies number fewer.

Dounakis firmly believes that the only solution for Greece is for the leftist and communist parties to take power.  He thinks that the key to solving Greece’s problems lies in the hands of the Greek people themselves.  According to him, the citizens are waking up.  “They need to vote for the left parties and communists…If they vote again for the right, for the same leaders, the people are stupid.”  

Dounakis tells how years ago, the Communist Party (KKE) warned Greece of the plans of the “big sharks” prior to entering the EU.  Like a father with his son in an “I told you so” moment, he explains further that the small parties told the truth, yet the people still voted for the “big sharks and big companies.”  Thus, all the bailout money, he says, is going to the “Troika”: the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.  He compares the “Troika” to the loan rackets that Chicago gangsters ran decades ago. 

Regardless, he doesn’t blame Germany, and repeats that it’s time for Greek people to wake up.  “I don’t blame superpowers, they doing to make their own jobs,” his face resigned to indifference.  He adds that most Greeks in Greece would agree with this, but Greek nationals in America do not.  “I blame my fucked up, stupid people.  Don’t stay in house and let other people with good jobs vote!”  (Numbers indicate that on average, over 80 percent of Greeks vote.)  He finishes by saying, “In this country, same thing, too.  Get out and vote!”  The wisdom of his words rings loudly, as the American masses are frequently afflicted with voter apathy.  When people don’t actively participate in their democracy and the path of their country goes terribly awry, the best place to look for answers might be the closest mirror.

Sometimes Europeans say that one big difference between themselves and Americans is that “in Europe governments fear the people, and in America people fear the government.”  Perhaps Bairaktaris unconsciously reflects on this as he urges “Don’t live in fear.”  He submits that this is the most important thing in life as his eyes track back and forth across the sky.  Maybe the problems of Greece, America’s problems, and the problems of so many other countries during this tumultuous era aren’t as different as they are frequently portrayed to be.  By accepting responsibility for leading ourselves into misfortune, perhaps salvation can be found in our commonalities with others around the globe.  “I don’t believe in nationalism bullshit” Bairaktaris declares.  “I believe in good people is everywhere, understanding, sitting down, talking.”  Sometimes the solutions to our problems are simple and easily attained, if we only saw them.  With that, he bids goodbye and returns to his social club to sit and talk with his friends.

Written by Adam Miezio for Media Roots

Photo by flickr user Piazza del Popolo

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MEDIA ROOTS — As U.S.A. comes to grips with a severe financial hangover, its economy will adapt to meet the peoples’ needs.  After 30 years of easy credit, subprime mortgages, zero interest loans, and binge spending, the economy has imploded.  The wizards of Wall Street continue casting spells and weaving their magic, as the corporate media rattles on about the wizards’ omnipotence like a rickety player piano. 

Meanwhile, back in the world of reality, some are beginning to realize the necessity of more contemporary ways of doing business.  Decreasing wages, increasing taxes for workers, stifling regulations, and a mortally wounded economy are all forcing people to do business a different way.  If current conditions continue, ‘black markets‘ will emerge, giving local economies an IV to keep them stable.

The global Black Market has already surpassed $1 trillion in sales.  The United States alone already accounts for more than $600 billion, almost three times the nearest competitor- China.  U.S. workers, seeing that the economy for the ‘99%’ is still toxic, are doing an end around to oppressive, financial restraints and austerity imposed by the government and Wall Street.  When times become too financially difficult and unbearable in the face of financial repression (think Prohibition and the War on Drugs) black markets spring up like mushrooms after a morning dew.  The economic intrusions of a government gone haywire include repression of raw milk sales, tracking gold and silver purchases over $600, the IRS considering taxing barter exchanges, and the FDA claiming jurisdiction over personal gardens.  Citizens are creating new economic systems which serve their own interests outside of corporate, monopolistic, centralized markets.

The ‘1%’ fear decentralized markets because money and profits they’ve pillaged will be siphoned away from them and they will be effectively locked out of large monetary streams.  Citizens who desire to create their own system, a system which benefits them, will move more and more to localized markets, increased reliance on localized products, and utilization of informal, non-mainstream business networks.  The status quo will viciously fight back against such developments, as new economic alternatives threaten their carefully orchestrated system of financially slavery they have created.  We must learn to reject this malevolent system and embrace the concept of black markets.  Black markets are simply unsanctioned trade dynamics. 

Black markets can be beneficial to most U.S. workers and advantageous in a number of ways.  For starters, no taxes are paid by the participants, and more goods may become available, which normally aren’t.  In times of economic duress, participation in a black market makes a revolutionary statement.  U.S.A. seems to be undergoing a bout of history repeating itself.  The Boston Tea Party and the Whiskey Rebellion gave U.S.A. the first taste of resistance to economic bullying.  However, we’ve forgotten that lesson for a long time.  After a nasty bout of binge-drinking easy credit and free money, the hangover it’s left us with is bringing us back to our roots.

Adam Miezio

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ALT-MARKET — As Americans, we live in two worlds; the world of mainstream fantasy, and the world of day-to-day reality right outside our front doors.  One disappears the moment we shut off our television.  The other, does not… 

When dealing with the economy, it is the foundation blocks that remain when the proverbial house of cards flutters away in the wind, and these basic roots are what we should be most concerned about.  While much of what we see in terms of economic news is awash in a sticky gray cloud of disinformation and uneducated opinion, there are still certain constants that we can always rely on to give us a sense of our general financial environment.  Two of these constants are supply and demand.  Central banks like the private Federal Reserve may have the ability to flood markets with fiat liquidity to skew indexes and stocks, and our government certainly has the ability to interpret employment numbers in such a way as to paint the rosiest picture possible, but ultimately, these entities cannot artificially manipulate the public into a state of demand when they are, for all intents and purposes, dead broke. 

In contrast, the establishment does have the ability to make specific demands or necessities illegal to possess, and can even attempt to restrict their supply.  Though, in most cases this leads not to the control they seek, but a sudden and sharp loss of regulation through the growth of covert trade.  The people need what the people need, and no government, no matter how titanic, can stop them from getting these commodities when demand is strong enough.

This process of removing necessary or desirable items from a trade environment leads inevitably to counter-prohibition often in the form of strict cash transactions, barter markets, or “black markets” as they are normally derided by those in power.  The problem for economic totalitarians is that the harder they squeeze the masses, the more intricate the rebellion becomes, especially when all they want is to participate in free markets the way our forefathers intended.

Read more about America’s burgeoning black markets.

© 2012 Alt-Market.com

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Photo by flickr user Refracted Moments

March 9, 2012

MEDIA ROOTS — “In this same dream I had a girl waiting for me down the hall. I wanted to go out and see her but the nurse wouldn’t let me so after trying to fight my way out and failing I called the MP’s who promptly arrested them. After that I found out that they were going to beat me up so I tried to make friends with the one who appeared to be the leader. It must have worked because I don’t remember a beating.”  —unknown male soldier volunteer at Edgewood 1963, dose: IM 7.0 ug/kg 

When the movie Jacob’s Ladder came out in 1990, many people were probably not aware that it was loosely based on 1968 military experiments conducted in lab and field exercises at the Edgewood Arsenal proving ground in Maryland.  Even though Jacob’s Ladder ends with a brief description of 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) and its effects, Adrian Lyne, the film’s director, has denied the powerful and dangerous hallucinogenic compound was ever used on human test subjects.  However, there is evidence to suggest otherwise.  In a recent lawsuit against the U.S. government, a document showing BZ’s solubility in human blood has been uncovered.

A lawsuit was filed last week by eight U.S. military veterans against, virtually, every branch of the Defense Department, including Veterans Affairs and even Attorney General Eric Holder.  The veterans were guinea pigs in a massive military-funded and controlled human drug experiment program, which shows that, among other drugs like Mescaline, LSD, and amphetamines, they also subjected people to a drug which lasts 80 hours and creates a fever-like dream of reality, better described as a waking, walking nightmare called BZ.  

At least one other account exists apart from the one excerpted above from an unknown soldier at Edgewood Arsenal as well as another from a military scientist, Dr. James Moore, who was accidentally exposed trying to synthesize the compound.  In Dr. Moore’s instance, he administered himself with acridine, as an antidote for BZ’s effects.  In the unknown soldier’s case he had over three days of waking nightmares, imagining fights with hospital staff and MPs, and having hour-long imaginary conversations with an ex-girlfriend about her surprise pregnancy announcement.  Beyond this, Media Roots has been unable to locate additional verified first-hand accounts.

BZ was modeled after atropine, an active chemical found in Datura.  Indigenous North and South Americans have used Datura and other similar plants which contain atropine (e.g., Belladona, Brugmansia) in ancient spiritual rituals up until the present day.  Besides psilocybin, and n,n-DMT, atropine-containing medicinal plants are proliferated globally around the world’s ecosystem more than any other hallucinogenic psychoactive drug.  Unlike DMT and psilocybin, Datura never caught on recreationally because of its dangerous and unpredictable nature.  In the wild, Datura plants (or pretty much any plant containing the active ingredient) contain huge differences in potency, making it almost impossible to give someone an accurately measured or safe dose of the plant extract.  Even administering a pure chemical ‘psychedelic’ dosage of atropine can lead to heart failure or stroke.

This didn’t stop the US government during the height of its drug experimentation days from trying to harness its power and re-tool the active chemical in Datura into a powerful weaponized gas to be used on the U.S. military battlefields. 

It’s not hard to guess what the effects were like beyond the trip reports we have based on its similarity to a Datura.  On Erowid.org’s Datura ‘effects’ section, they list delirium capable of bringing about auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations indistinguishable from reality.  This waking dream-like state can lead to unconscious violent behavior much like a drunken ‘black-out.’  It’s also reported uncommonly large doses can cause hallucinations lasting for two to three days.  This mirrors available data regarding the duration of BZ’s effects.

If the U.S. government in 1968 was willing to go as far as attempt to weaponize, which essentially means aerosolizing it or making it airborne, a more concentrated form of the world’s most terrifying and unpleasant hallucinogen, who can say whether or not they also toyed with doing the same to another more recently discovered hallucinogen, Salvinorin A? The effects of Salvinorin A are just as unpredictable as Datura but far shorter lasting.  We know that in the late ‘90s the Russian government attempted to use a gaseous form of Fentanyl, one of the most powerful opiates—more powerful than oxycontin, heroin or morphine—to diffuse a hostage crisis.  The end result was the tragic, accidental deaths of many of the hostages, by overdose. 

The effects of what BZ would do to a group of armed soldiers would be completely unpredictable and most likely dangerous—what’s depicted in the film Jacob’s Ladder would be a worst-case scenario.  No one really knows the extent to which—or in what situations or environments—the U.S. government actually tested hallucinogenic drugs on its soldiers, which is part of the reason why similar lawsuits in the past have been dismissed.  Only in the last decade has the military declassified enough information that these Guinea pig soldiers have been allowed to tell their health-care providers what took place at Edgewood Arsenal.  It’s unfortunate that, since they volunteered, the U.S. government can pass off responsibility.  But these experiments were done at a time when the general public had no idea what these hallucinogens did, making informed consent unlikely.

Ethically, it would be hard to make the case that these soldiers knew what the consequences would be to their physical and mental healths. 

Written by Robbie Martin, co-host of Media Roots Radio

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UPDATED NEWS — There were no warnings about side effects or potential long-term health risks, according to Wray’s deposition.  Although he wasn’t forced to take the drugs, he was “given an option of not taking the test, but with innuendos — with the option of bad punishment if we did not participate,” he says in the deposition transcript…..Of all the events that took place during Wray’s time at Edgewood, Kathryn says one disturbing memory he told her about that stuck with him for more than three decades:

Wray and eight others were taken to a clinic room and told to lie on cots, where they were hooked up to IVs and left alone, Kathryn says. Within 5 minutes he was so high he could not find his legs, he told her. “Then he said it felt like the bed was floating off of the floor — and then the pain hit.” He described it as a “terrible, terrible headache, so bad he could not open his eyes, so bad he was just screaming in pain,” making him throw up several times. A man in a nearby bunk was “trying to claw his own eyes out” — until Wray and another volunteer managed to get out of their bunks, crawl over to the panicking man and stop him, he told her.

“And while all of this going on, there was a nurse standing in the corner — she was taking notes. She made no attempt to aid this gentleman,” says Kathryn. For days afterward, he was “completely disoriented and terrified the pain would begin again,” Kathryn says.

Read more about Widow blames VA for spouse’s death.

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Photo from US Defense Department Edgewood stock footage