23A013 Two MICs by Jim Davies, 3/28/2023

Dwight Eisenhower was a professional soldier, who commanded the D-Day invasion of 1944 and later on, NATO. Subsequently he was elected President, after defeating America-Firster Taft in the Republican Primary, and did a full 8-year stint. As such he began supporting South Vietnam and approved a plan to invade Cuba, so he was an "interventionist." JFK succeeded him, stopped the latter and tried to stop the former, so somebody killed him in Dallas.

Eisenhower did one thing right however, before handing over to Kennedy; he warned, in his famous farewell speech, of the dangers of the "Military Industrial Complex." It was ironic, that he had for most of his career helped build up that complex; I don't imagine he told munitions makers in 1943 and -44 that no, thank you, he had quite enough aircraft, landing barges and tanks and did not wish to burden the US taxpayer any further. But to his credit, by 1961 he did see that something had gone wrong; and so the acronym "MIC" entered the language.

It works this way: a danger comes to Congress' attention. A looming war, maybe. Something that needs a trainload of money. Congress is impressed, raids the taxpayer for the funds, and pays them to contractors who will produce such weapons or other stuff as needed to overcome the danger.

The contractors make a nice profit so naturally form a plan to keep the gravy train rolling; if (as in 1945) the war is over and won, they meet with their Congress critters over dinner, wine, trips to Epstein Island and whatever else is needed to obtain support, and promise generous re-election gifts in return for votes in the House to keep the weapons orders flowing.

Jobs are created or sustained, votes go to re-elect the Pol, profits are made and enemies, real or artificial, are defeated. Everybody wins, right? - except the enemies, the taxpayers and those who might resent the growing power of the US hegemon. But most inside the US seem to win; Pols, military contractors, their employees and share holders, and the surviving soldiers - who have prestigious jobs, public acclaim ("thank you for your service"!) with lifetime medical care and early retirement. That's the Military Industrial Complex.

For the proxy war against Russia, $113 billion in orders have been corraled so far, and with this MIC in full swing it's not hard to see why so very few inside the US are interested in a peace settlement. In total, this MIC is diverting $700 billion a year away from the choices its owners would have made, or $2,120 per person. Government calls that "Defense" but Smedley Butler said "War is a racket."

A second MIC to which a recent ZGBlog has called attention is the Medical Industrial Complex, and most of this has been built up after Eisenhower's time since 1980 by one architect, Dr Anthony Fauci. It works, though, in a very similar way; perhaps he took the military one as a template.

Once again a danger is announced. Funds are stolen from plain folk and spent on pharmaceuticals that are nearly always needless, and the makers reward the congresscritters with lavish treats, donations for re-election, and dividends from their profits. Everyone wins, except that - in the recent cases of AIDS and Covid, governments made use of the invented danger to terrorize, intimidate and improverish "their" populations as shown in The Bogus Plague of 2020 - with a special aim at people in the countries of NATO, where it was primarily organized.

NATO has emerged as a vehicle for b0th these MICS in this decade; spearheading the ruin of the Covid fraud so as to enrich Big Pharma and everyone it pays off, and arranging the flow of weapons to Ukraine, where most of them are wasted by well-targeted Russian missiles and drones. To the Military IC that doesn't matter, of course; what matters is that money keeps flowing its way. The ~200,000 battle deaths so far are just collateral damage.

Are there other ICs operating or in preparation, beyond these two? Very possibly. In fact in one sense pretty well every government program conforms to the pattern: allege a need, steal the money, pass it to contractors, receive the kickback. It's how over 90% of Congresscritters are routinely re-elected, and how when they do retire, they do so filthy rich, far more so than their salaries could have allowed. Politics, not just war, is a racket.

The racket will end when, thanks to your use of TOLFA, nobody will work for them.