30" x 40"
Oil on Canvas
The U.S. loves war; after all, it gives us a sense of patriotism, solidarity, love for our fellow man and brings forth feelings of humility. This is all FALSE, except for rare cases such as WWI and WWII. The U.S. has only been at peace for less than 20 years total since its birth.
Plato’s forms - patriotism, Justice and Honor - are all made of up by man’s imagination!
Nearly half of the federal discretionary budget goes to defense—$623 billion in 2018. In his 2020 Pentagon budget request, President Trump proposed increasing that amount to $750 billion. These annual totals understate total military spending: a May report from the Center for International Policy found that, counting all ten funding sources for war fighting, the actual total amount spent on defense in 2019 would be $1.254 trillion, nearly as much as the $1.359 trillion spent in the entire discretionary budget, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Homeland Security, Energy, and more.
The United States’ position as the top arms-producing nation in the world remains unchanged, and for now unchallenged.
The United States is home to five of the world’s 10 largest defense contractors, and American companies account for 57 percent of total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest defense contractors, based on SIPRI data.
Four companies—Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics—make up 90% of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in deals worth over $125 billion, according to a July 2019 report by the Center for International Policy. American-made weapons have been used by Saudi Arabia’s government in the war in Yemen, with a death toll that has risen over 100,000, including 12,000 civilians from attacks targeting them.
For example, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in the world, is estimated to have had $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017 through deals with governments all over the world. The company drew public scrutiny after a bomb it sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 boys and 11 adults. Lockheed’s revenue from the U.S. government alone is well more than the total annual budgets of the IRS and the Environmental Protection Agency, combined.
So who profits? I mean, blood in exchange for $$$$; someone has to benefit and it’s not the soldiers!
Stocks and bonds - profiting on war- THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Lobbyists, presidents, military and Pentagon leaders, U.S. congressional members and many others own STOCK
The maimed veterans who end up on the street or killed by their own hands are written off without a second thought
Of the at least 380 former high-ranking Department of Defense officials who went through the revolving door to become lobbyists or senior executives in 2018, around one quarter joined the top 5 defense contractors, according to the Project On Government Oversight: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. Current U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is a former lobbyist at Raytheon, which over the past two election cycles spent $6.4 million on campaign contributions and $20 million on federal lobbying.
Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have re-introduced their Ban Conflicted Trading Act, which would prohibit members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks, giving them six months from enactment to divest their shares, and from serving on corporate boards, something that’s already banned in the Senate but not in the House.
“Members of Congress serve the American people, not their stock portfolios,” Sen. Brown previously told Sludge. “Elected officials have access to nonpublic information that can affect individual companies and entire industries. There must be more accountability and transparency to prevent members from using this information and abusing their positions for personal gain.”
Our Veterans
Of the $180 billion VA spent in 2017, the department paid disability compensation of $73 billion to 4.5 million veterans with service-connected disabilities. VA spent a little less, $69 billion, on medical care for more than 6 million veteran patients and medical research. Dec 21, 2018
Our Homeless Veterans - and this gets ugly
Although flawless counts are impossible to come by – the transient nature of homeless populations presents a major difficulty – the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that 40,056 veterans are homeless on any given night.
Are they talking about the state of California or the entire U.S.????
Veterans Committing Suicide
The average number of Veteran suicides per day was 17.6 in 2018.
The rate of suicide among Veterans who received recent VA care decreased by 2.4%
No VA analyses to date indicate COVID-19 pandemic-era increases in VA health system-reported Veteran suicides, attempts or volume of emergency department visits related to suicide attempts.
Images provided by Christine S (odetteodileproducts-chris.squarespace.com). All rights reserved.
