Trump’s salute: Apotheosis of the warfare state (2)

The US is fast moving towards militarization and instead become great as the quixotic president brags, it is poised for its imminent downfall.

Here is the second and last part of the article titled: “Trump’s Salute: Apotheosis of the Warfare State” that appeared on the ‘Antiwar’ site.

The writer is David Stockman, a two-term Congressman from Michigan, who after leaving the Ronald Reagan White House, had a 20-year career on Wall Street, and authored three books, including “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, and “TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin.”

In a true policy of America First during the present day and age, we would not even waste money on these relics. Advanced missile and munitions technology and our already bought and paid for nuclear deterrent is all that is needed to keep any theoretical aggressors at bay.

And that’s the real irony of the day. The Donald was elected because he sounded like he wanted to end the crushing failure and cost of an Empire made in Washington by the very Warfare State complex that licks its own ice cream.

Yet owing to his own insatiable ego and schoolboy infatuation with military weapons like those listed below, he ended up organizing a Fourth of Me celebration of the very Warfare State that threatens the unalienable right to Liberty, Prosperity and Happiness that was born 243 years ago. He put on display the following:

Air Force One

Blue Angels (F-18 (6))

US Coast Guard Aircraft: MH-60 (1)/ MH-65 (1) / C-130 (1)

US Air Force Aircraft: B-2 (1) / F-22 (2)

US Marine Corps Aircraft: V-92 (1) / V-22 (2)

US Army: Aircraft: AH-64 (4)

US Navy: F-35 (2) / F-18 (2)

M1A2 Abrams Tanks (2)

M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (2)

M88 Recovery Vehicle (1)

Contact Truck with crew (1)

This is all against the letter and word of the Declaration of Independence that the Founding Fathers of the US issued on July 4, 1776. Following are some of its paragraphs, which though they refer to the tyranny of the British king, are an identical reflection of the policies of Donald Trump:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Britain (read Donald Trump) is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

AS/SS