Like a broken record, it grates worse each time it repeats.
Once again, in tonight's candidates' debate, Mitt Romney trumpeted for increased defense spending.
Medicare, social security, education, all these 'wasteful and bloated' government programs must be pared to the bone so that we can revive our depleted military, such as a navy that is "smaller than it was in 1917". A navy that is bigger than the next seven navies combined. A navy that has eight aircraft carriers to face down the impending threat of China's single carrier, bought at a Soviet yard sale and that can't even move under its own power.
This is the position from the most (now that Huntsman has bowed out) 'fiscally astute' and 'moderate' Republican candidate. This is the course he would chart for America, which already accounts for 47 per cent of the world's total military spending. A country that is already the largest exporter of warfare and its implements of death and violence.
More than 40 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us that-
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967
Even without Mitt Romney's proposed increases, we will be more than just approaching spiritual death by the end of the next presidential term -- we'll actually be there. That's because any cuts to government spending that do not include significant cuts in military spending impell us toward that doom.
Let's put current spending in perspective. We have an annual military budget, including current spending in Iraq and Afghanistan of about $725 billion. That is $3 billion per week. When you include the related costs of intelligence spending, veterans' benefits and other security spending such as DOE nuclear weapons research, we're now talking about over $1 trillion per year.
Back in October, WaPo collumnist Matt Miller wrote a piece entitled "Mitt Romney's Defense Cult" In it he noted-
Republican members of this cult believe that the only way in today’s media and political culture to signal you are “strong” on defense is to propose a bigger defense budget than Democrats.
Democratic members of this cult believe that the only way to avoid losing elections to Republicans is to call for as much or more defense spending than the GOP.
More to the point is his prediction about how this issue will play in the future debates between Gov. Romney and Pres. Obama-
The way our two-party debate works, these common-sense perspectives will never be aired in the campaign. It’ll just be: “Barack Obama is threatening our security” vs. “No, I’m not because we both want to spend more on the Pentagon, me just a little more efficiently than you.” Next question?
What Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said over 40 years ago was that every time a bomb goes off overseas, we feel the second impact of that bomb as we witness our schools crumble and our social services go up in flames. $3 Billion dollars a day spent in the name of death through violence, as our fellow citizens suffer from inadequate health care, as our children sit in overcrowded classrooms, as our elderly shiver in the cold or swelter in the heat. Dr. King clearly saw the opponent process of warmongering and civil rights-
There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.
This quote is more relevant now than ever, since America posesses such overwhelming military superiority the the term 'Defense Dept.' is ludicrous. We have a War Department. And the 'Non-Negotiable' American way of life, with its voracious consumption of foreign energy and natural resources is simply unsustainable without resorting to taking what is required from weaker nations by force.
And that is when the American Spirit will truly die.