How to remove the Military Industrial Complex from the Treasury?

[Fire Walk With Me]

This matter is not completely connected to who may be President, and there is no public vote on the matter. People don't like to discuss it (perhaps because BushCo have been taking names since they got into office) but it's a real problem and will only continue to compound unless it is effectively addressed.

How to do so? How to remove them from determining US foreign policy? How to return the nation to human-oriented policy instead of profit-oriented policy?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I think there should be an independent panel that reviews

budgets and expenditures for the Pentagon and the military in general. Audits. Public accountability. Come to think of it, the same should apply to the federal budget.

[Gotitdone]

8. We do have an 2 independent panels.

Its called the house of Representatives and the senate.
We even get to vote for who is in it.

[demnan]

2. Interesting question and right to the point of the matter

My gut reaction is that this can't be done. I think the Corporate masters are so throughly entrenched in government that removing them would take a revolution. I think we really have to settle for the "lesser of two evils". Don't think that's going to change, really.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. I agree, and...

I've been talking about this for years.

I don't go along with the corporate masters thing so much, though, but two things do encourage military spending--

The public has bought into "security" and any money the Pentagon spends is usually met with approval. This didn't start with 9/11 and goes back to the Cold War when we spent billions to ward off the "Communist threat." Now, we just invent new threats.

Besides Halliburton and the oil companies who are raking it in, the money spent is incredibly pervasive. There are thousands of small companies all over the country making everything from shoelaces and underwear to munitions-- somebody has to make the brass buttons. Even my tiny little town has a military subcontractor. Congress has been very active in making sure every Congressional district gets a bit of Pentagon largesse and refuses to kill off programs that might reduce local employment.

We think of camp towns in the South where most large bases are, but Eatontown, NJ was worried about going under if Ft. Monmouth was closed. A few hundred million in civilian salaries and spending in the local economy got the entire NJ Congressional delegation to scream to the heavens that the world would end if Monmouth was closed. That sort of thing is repeated all over the country.

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. If the problem is allowed to continue, it will have us at war with Iranian oil

and the only question will be how soon it will happen.

We can consider peaceful resolution of the problem while we are able, or the far more difficult tasks of solving the problem later, after it has created millions of America haters willing to fight back.

I know that this problem is not supposed to be discussed out loud, where they can take names, but...Iran.

[Marblehead]

5. 3 words

campaign finance reform

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. Good point, and welcome to DU!

Press your elected representatives on the subject.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Most importantly-- how to do so NOW?

Before the fights and invasions and wars snowball? The problem is now, not 2008 or later.

[Hawkowl]

9. Retool the industry first

I think the most feasible plan would be a two step process. First we would need to change the focus from military/weapons to some other focus. Similar to Kennedy calling for a national campaign to go to the moon. I think the logical new national campaign would be energy independence/anti global warming through technology. Gradually taking the money spent on the Pentagon and fantasy weapons programs and shift it to the R.D. to this worthy goal. In fact giving the money to the very same companies such as Boeing, GE etc. In effect co-opting them and helping them to beat their swords into plowshares. If you just try and cut the money spigot off cold turkey, the military industrial complex could simply fight the budget cuts with a save our jobs campaign that happens every time we try to close a military base. This retooling and "subsidization" (aka bribery) would be a several year process until the military is sufficiently downsized from Empire status to merely defensive like the rest of the western world.

Then once the military is of appropriate size and the industrial end is manufacturing, researching helpful technology and products, we could begin to phase out the subsidies (bribery).

[many a good man]

10. I know how

Military spending is mostly just pork. Congressmen are on it like a duck on a June bug because it brings home the bacon to their home districts. All that federal money stimulates the local economy and improves people's lives, just like Keynes said it would.

The trick then is to gradually redefine "military spending" to include things that help people instead of kill them.

Merge the budgets for the military and "homeland security." Broaden the definition of security. Use it to give people jobs improving the infrastructure. Fire and rescue. Roads and highways. Communication systems. Alternative energy. The list can go on and on.

The point is start spending national defense dollars in ways that actually make us more secure and help out Americans, instead of the MIC. The dollars will flow and we can make a real impact.

[Lone_Wolf]

11. We should be able to dictate on our 1040s how we wish our taxes to be spent

We should get to be able to choose on our 1040s how we wish to have to taxes we paid allocated.