Links are at the end.
I had a ketamine treatment yesterday and my brain got a thorough scrub.
The Bidennaires are selling the war in Ukraine and the potential genocide in Gaza as an opportunity to boost the U.S. economy. Politico nabbed a copy of talking points administration officials are using to gain support from those among our federal legislators who aren’t persuaded by the philosophical arguments in favor of those exercises.
“This [$106 billion] supplemental request invests over $50 billion in the American defense industrial base — ensuring our military continues to be the most ready, capable, and best equipped fighting force the world has ever seen — and expanding production lines, strengthening the American economy and creating new American jobs,” the document states.1
What’s good for the war industry is good for the country. Blood money boosts the economy. The Lever sat in on recent earnings calls from RTX (formerly Raytheon) and General Dynamics, two of the major beneficiaries of U.S.- supported bloodshed worldwide; to nobody’s surprise, company executives are bullish on bloodshed.
“The Israel situation obviously is a terrible one, frankly, and one that’s just evolving as we speak,” said Jason Aiken, chief financial officer and executive vice president at General Dynamics, on Wednesday. “But I think if you look at the incremental demand potential coming out of that, the biggest one to highlight and that really sticks out is probably on the artillery side.”
He continued: “Obviously that’s been a big pressure point up to now with Ukraine, one that we’ve been doing everything we can to support our Army customer. We’ve gone from 14,000 rounds per month to 20,000 very quickly. We’re working ahead of schedule to accelerate that production capacity up to 85,000, even as high as 100,000 rounds per month, and I think the Israel situation is only going to put upward pressure on that demand.”2
Lots of people think military support for Ukraine and Israel, or one or the other, is just fine, morally justified, but of course the U.S. also sells to Saudi Arabia and other countries which routinely commit war crimes with U.S. materiel—terrible situations, the General Dynamics guy might say, but ones that put upward pressure on the capacity to produce all kinds of stuff for indiscriminately blowing people up or mowing them down.
On Sept. 21, the Biden administration announced that it is preparing a massive new $500 million weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. The deal could have troubling implications for human rights. Now, with just days left for Congress to intervene, it’s critical that our lawmakers act to stop the cycle of impunity for Saudi Arabia’s abuses.
Just a month before the announcement, on Aug. 21, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a damning report exposing atrocities committed by Saudi border guards against Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers at the Saudi-Yemen border.
These horrifying incidents, documented in December 2022, included the use of explosive weapons and mass field executions of hundreds of migrants, including women and children. Accounts of torture, rape, and torment were also included in the report. 3
A $500 million deal doesn’t qualify as massive against the backdrop of multi-billion dollar sales to the Saudis approved by every president this century4 including, despite his campaign promises to make the Saudis and their ruler, Mohammed bin Bonesaw, international pariahs, Joe Biden and the Bidennaires,5 but you can see why the Quaker lobbyists might take it the wrong way.
David Rothkopf has a solid piece in The Daily Beast about the threat posed by Christofascists in the Mike Johnson vein, and how our new Speaker of the House—who is one of those raging but polite reactionaries, the ones without shreds of human flesh stuck in their teeth whom I thought might be able to gain the post—poses a more significant threat to our little Potemkin democracy than does Trump.6
The tale of Jesus’s brother James sank beneath the waters of history without a trace for centuries, but has recently been resurrected by a Kilroy Was Here-like artifact which is part of an immersive Jesus experience. Wash yourself in the blood of the lamb for the low low price of $39.7
The Journalist’s Resource, an invaluable project of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, which has appeared here before, has a long piece summarizing research on how horse-race journalism lobotomizes its practitioners and the electorate, and poses as significant a threat to our little Potemkin democracy as the Christofascists and other deranged ideological or simply power-mad political factions.8
There’s always bad news on the ‘lack of universal health care is killing people’ front, and here’s some about people kicked off the Medicaid rolls in Georgia thanks to the state’s work requirement for the program.9
Of course the doc-blocked impoverished people in question can always opt for Obamacare, where many of them will find policies requiring copays and deductibles well beyond their limited means. In this they’ll join tens of millions of other folks—as Obama might designate them—with and without health insurance who find themselves untreated or cripplingly indebted because they can’t afford necessary medical care. The Commonwealth Fund’s most recent survey on health care affordability has the details.10
Nikon’s annual photomicrography contest invariably attracts awesome pics from excellent and imaginative photographers.11
Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, “Reunion With Chet Baker;12” Gerry Mulligan, “Gerry Mulligan meets Ben Webster.13”
And that, Comrades, is all I got. Please share it if you like it, and consider subscribing if you’ve not already so considered—it’s free unless you want to pay.
Be well, take care, don’t get sick, and don’t truck with mongers of death.
I can't tell from your comments whether you are in favor or opposed to arms supplies to Ukraine and/or Israel. I do appreciate your revulsion at the notion that supplying them should be approved on the basis that it's good for the economy.