Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)

 The UCMJ is the law for all members of the military.  It is our 2nd Constitution.  Orders given or carried out must be done so within the framework defined by the UCMJ.  There are, to the best of my knowledge, no authorized work arounds for anyone.  Officers have a duty to give orders that comport with the guidelines and they have a duty to disobey orders that violate either the UCMJ or the Constitution.

UCMJ full and searchable

Standard US Military Oaths

FOR ENLISTED 

I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."

FOR COAST GUARD

I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and of the State of (applicable state) against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to them; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the Governor of (applicable state) and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to law and regulations. (So help me God)."

FOR OFFICERS

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.^[1]

Just Business/Just Politics/Just Disgusting

 Occasionally someone suggests that I should run for political office or, they inquire about why I don't run for political office.  Recent events along with a bit of information about myself should answer the question quite satisfactorily.

I'm not especially good at letting perceived insults go.  Honesty requires me to acknowledge the previous sentence as incredibly gross understatement.  I hold on to grudges like a black hole holding on to dense, inert matter.  Once on my shit list the most likely scenario is that they will stay on my shit list.  

Felon47 has a history of making disparaging comments of a personal nature about his political foes.  Ted Cruz was somehow willing and able to let slide the insulting of his wife, the lies about his dad, and the insults levied at him directly to the point that he sat and phone banked for the immoral misanthrope occupying the Oval Office.  Lindsey Graham goes golfing with the POS that doxed and casually insulted him.  

After months of insults, idiotic and false allegations, and providing questionable aid to his opponents, the nation's top pedophile fawned over the mayor-elect of NYC as though none of that had happened.

I have no trouble at all believing Trump never actually believed the things he said.  Hell, I have no trouble believing that he didn't understand all of that words he used.  I'm pretty sure that makes it worse, not better.  To Mango Mussolini, the bombastic insults and actions are "just politics".  For years he has ripped contractors and business associates off even when it required him to break laws to do so.  To him, it was "just business".

TBF, I have seen politicians in lesser positions act in a reasonably analogous manner.  I didn't like it then either.  It is not something I am likely to do .  In the final analysis saying something you don't believe is a lie.  While I am not fundamentally incapable of lying, it is not something I do as casually as the politicians I am thinking of.  To them this is all a game.  Everything is about winning or losing and the effects on the citizenry are not concerns.

To me this behavior cannot be dismissed as "just politics" or 'just business".  When I see it, I find it to be "just disgusting".

Unforced Errors

 A couple or four decades ago, I was arrested during a traffic stop.  It was bullshit from the beginning.  I had made a small set of "jumper cables" (speaker wire and alligator clips) for my kickstart only motorcycle.  I stashed them under the seat.  That was a mistake.

The exposed metal bits made contact with a relay and would cause the engine to die.  The contact was not secure so, sometimes it worked fine until I hit a bump or braked hard or accelerated hard.  

I was leaving a friend's house after the dinner that was my reward for helping pick up heavy stuff and move it around.  The bike died on me a couple of times so I pulled over to the side and tried successfully to identify and fix the problem.  I was putting the seat back on when the cop car pulled in behind me and fired up the blue lights.  No siren was needed as I was already pulled over and stopped.

The officer seemed sure he was dealing with Al Capone.  Field sobriety test, breathalyzer, nightstick to the kidneys while being compliant, I experienced all of it and passed the tests.  

It was a Friday.  Since I had passed the tests, I was arrested, charged with reckless driving, and taken to jail where I spent the weekend.  

After getting out of jail on Monday, I got a lawyer and eventually we went to court where the judge essentially stated that it was all bullshit and dismissed the case.  All's well that ends well, right?   Yea, no.  The world is somewhat more complicated than that.

You see, several things did not happen, either at all or not to the best of my knowledge.  The first thing that didn't happen is that no one apologized for my wrongful arrest.  No one offered to remunerate this veteran of the USN who joined during an active war for the almost 3 full days of me being denied access to my stuff, my life, my freedom.  To the best of my knowledge, neither the arresting officer nor his nightstick wielding buddy were disciplined or held accountable in any meaningful way.  Hell, I even had to provide my own transportation from jail and to court.

You might be thinking that I appear to have suffered no permanent physical injury or really, any other permanent injury so, after several decades I should probably just let it go.  That is exactly what would have happened in a slightly different world.

In the last year in particular, there have been numerous incidents of individuals being detained without cause.  There have been individuals whose misdemeanors were treated like violent felonies.  Decorated non-citizen veterans of our military are among those who have been abused.  The non-citizen family members of some veterans who are citizens are among those who have been abused.  The abuses would be embarrassing to us even if the allegations were valid given the verbiage of our Constitution.  

Now, I am not what you call an important man.  An awful lot of things happen without being run by me first.  I'm fine with that.  Still, the fact that a news junkie with time on his hands has not heard one thing about apologies or any fiscal acceptance of accountability is telling.  This lack of accountability is the foundation upon which an entire panoply of LEO abuses are built.

Though I have not ever been in a prison, here or anywhere else, I have no trouble understanding that they are bad places.  They are not made better by being located in developing or 3rd world nations.  But then, the cruelty of the prisons, the cruelty of the LEOs, the abuses of humans by humans in authority are the direct and predictable result of the lack of consistently imposed accountability.  You might think that since you are not Black or Hispanic, that since you are legally here and following the law, that since you are a patriotic citizen, you or your immigrant wife or your children are safe.  I can guarantee that a significant percentage of those abused in the relatively recent past had similar thoughts.  It would appear that those thoughts suck as armor.

Something must be done to correct this.  I rather seriously doubt the LEOs with abusive tendencies will be deterred by me being taxed more to pay their fines or for the care of those abused.  The abusers will need to experience the punishment - whether it is financial or something else - directly.  If they have been trained to do things differently than what the published rules say is acceptable, then their training officers need to be held accountable as well.  None of this will happen as long as you are or appear to be accepting of the status quo.  You will have to contact your political representatives electronically or in person.  You will need to go to meetings and protests.  You will need to have facts memorized.

You don't have to get out and protest to protect me.  You don't have to go vote to protect immigrants.  You need to do those things to protect yourself and your loved ones.  Those who abuse the power will keep doing it even if every Black and Hispanic leaves the nation tomorrow.  If you would not be happy being treated the way you are seeing people treated on television night after night, now is the time for you to take action.

We call out unforced errors in sports.  I think we need to make a waaaaaaay bigger deal of them when made by anyone being paid with public funds.

Long Lasting Lies

 Any of y'all remember the Steele Dossier from around the time of Felon47's first run for office??  As I recall, the basics were that a British intel weenie had acquired the Russian "kompromat" they had on Trump.  Among the things it was alleged to contain was clear evidence of the Felon enjoying a "golden shower" performance by a couple of Russian hookers he either employed or was "gifted" [note: the original version of this paragraph contained inaccurate information. The current phrasing is, to the best of my knowledge, accurate.]

I read or heard several times that the "evidence" had to be false because Trump is a germophobe and that his obsessive aversion to germs would have made sure that never happened.  TBF it was a pretty good argument.  If one accepts the premise that he was a germophobe, then the acts described seem pretty damn unlikely.

Back when I was in the Navy, we got briefings when we were heading to different countries.  We were told about local customs, places to avoid going and things to avoid doing to stay out of trouble.  Things like the idea that a thumbs up might not mean the same thing in a different culture than it does in the USA is but one example of that.

In one of those briefings (or possibly in a somewhat less formal setting) I was given a little bit of warning about Arab culture.  I was told that historically in that culture one used one's left hand to wipe one's ass and the right hand was used for everything else.  It was, I was informed, extremely insulting to offer one's left hand - to the point that it was a good way to start a fight (if not a war).

Soooooooooo, Felon47 is in the Oval Office with the Saudi Crown Prince - who ordered the killing and dismemberment of a legal American resident - and he reaches over with his right hand and grabs MBS's left hand while proudly proclaiming that he doesn't care where that hand has been.  Trump clearly and loudly stated that he did not care where that hand had been. I cannot accept the idea that was a random statement.  It seems to indicate at least some level of awareness of what he was doing/saying in reference to Arab culture.

What exactly am I supposed to believe??  Does the WH never brief the POTUS on culture issues?  Has Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree mandating the use of toilet paper??  Did they make the order retroactive?  (no, I do not have any idea how that might work)  MBS neither proffered his left hand nor attempted to reciprocate by taking the Felon's left hand. (I only watched clips so, in theory it could have happened and I missed it.) 

I know that some of you have limited experience with the generalized mental effects of an active erection or what one is willing to do in anticipation of having said active erection addressed so, I am here to help.  If he was willing to do unclean things sitting in the Oval Office with witnesses, it will be a tough slog to convince me that he was more restrained and circumspect in a hotel room with a couple of hookers and a hard on.

One does not get smarter whilst following an erection around.  One's decision making is not made more logical nor more moral through the stimulation of sexual desire.  Basically, if you want a guy to be dumber, turn him on.

So tell me now, which is the lie?  Why should I believe that the guy who grabbed the shit hand is a germophobe?  Why should I believe that he got over his obsessive behavior in just a few years out of office??  Is the barehanded taking shit from an evil monarch's hand really easier to accept than the idea that a hooker peed on him?

Felon47's actions in the Oval Office with MBS were clearly not those of an active germophobe.  Now you must ask yourself, did he ever have that particular brand of OCD or, is there any evidence of how and when was he cured?  I know what I think the answer is.

My Veteran's Day Post

 My Veterans Day Post

It may well be that adolescent and post-adolescent human males are the absolute dumbest things on the planet.  Far below rocks and paramecium in their analytical abilities reside these beings blissfully unaware of the scope of their lack of knowledge.  I was their king.

In consideration of the USA's observance of Veterans Day, I, and many others, have taken to putting up our baby pictures as our profile pictures.  The baby picture is the photo that they take of you in your dress uniform when you graduate from any of the military boot camps so as to become a full fledged member of the Army, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard or, as in my case, the United States Navy.  

That picture of me would be circa early December 1973.  I was about 5 months into being 18 years of age and could not be convinced that I was not a full grown man with all the knowledge of the world that anyone needed.  Yea, that ignored the fact that I grew 3" in the years after that photo was taken.  It ignored the fact that 10 years after that photo I had gained 70 pounds or so and still looked skinny. (I have gotten past that now)  It ignored the fact that up until that time I had spent the overwhelming majority of my time on the planet in one small neighborhood and when not in that neighborhood, I was in very tightly controlled circumstances i.e. church, school, church events, or school events.  But to hear me tell it when that picture was taken, I was ten feet tall and bullet proof.  Yep, I was an idiot.  The pertinent thing though, is that though I did not know it, in that I was completely unremarkable.  Our numbers were legion.  

Though I fought it with every fiber of my being, eventually reality set in and I learned some stuff.  Even before I had re-enlisted the first time, the Universe had conspired to teach me that I did not actually know everything.  There are to this day, frequent lessons made available to me that I am in fact mortal and more than pervious to pain.  The fact that I do not want or perceive an ongoing need for those lessons does not appear to impress the Universe and certainly doesn't seem to have diminished Her zeal for sending said lessons my way.

That kid in the picture who looks all of 12 years of age from this distance, that ignorant trusting idiot, was able to voluntarily join the military in time of war.  As a matter of fact, without that uniformed moron and his ilk, wars would be a lot more scarce.  The fabled powers that be need me and those like me because everyone else intuitively understands that being cannon fodder is a bad thing.  Everyone else gets that there are those in positions of political influence that simply do not have their best interests at heart.  It is those young fools unaware of, among other things, their real potential who get sent by every nation to futility's proving ground wherein we fertilize it with our sweat, blood, and bodies.

Even though I sometimes find it hard to believe that I was indeed that kid in the picture, I want you to know that I was.  I want you to look around the social media sites and see all the pictures of those youngsters and know that that is who you send to war.  I want you to know how little we know and understand when we look like that.  I want you to know how much we trust that you are doing your jobs as citizens, being critical of such information you are given, and that is what makes us comfortable doing your bidding, as expressed by the civilian leadership of the nation.  I do not need or want you to look back.  I do not need or desire verbal appreciation for what I did largely out of ignorance.  What I need is for you to live up to the trust that those whose baby pictures are a couple of years old, a couple of months old or, yet to be taken - I need you to live up to the trust that has been bestowed upon you.  I need you to not waste the life, limb, psyche or time of a single young man or woman just because you can.  I need you to look past the platitudes, past the bumper stickers, past the manufactured outrage, past the manipulative efforts and ensure that your representatives, the civilian leadership of the military and the nation are indeed working in the best interests of those who currently look as young as I do in that picture and those who recently did.  Don't thank me.  Protect them.  Appropriately honor their sacrifice.  Give them the care and support that they need and deserve.  That will be thanks enough.  That is the way you honor veterans, by showing them that when they went to class, you learned the lesson.

Not Unique

DEI and diversity have gotten a bad rap of late.  Some of us who should know better saw it as behavior that is out of the blue.  All of a sudden, programs and policies that had been in place for years or decades with the goal of muting or reversing some of the damage caused by our nation's history of racism and misogyny were being described as prejudicial to white guys rather than corrective for everyone who isn't a white guy.

It wasn't out of the blue.  It was the open admission of the belief of white guys in their superiority.  Not every white guy but yes, every one of them that complained or wanted to complain.  

The proof of the truth in this post is Andrew Mountbattan Windsor.  You see, Andrew was a close associate of Jeffery Epstein.  He was a frequent visitor to the island and apparently, a frequent user of the children Epstein kept around for him and his friends to use.  The punishment Andrew is receiving for his participation in the rape and abuse of children is that from now on, he will have to live like most folk in the Western culture live.  He is no longer Prince Andrew.  

(from Perplexity.ai)

"Andrew can no longer use the title “Prince” and is officially known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.​

He forfeited the titles:

Duke of York

Earl of Inverness

Baron Killyleagh.​

All rights to the style “His Royal Highness” were removed.​

Ceremonial honors such as the Order of the Garter and the Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order have also been rescinded.​

His name was erased from the official Roll of the Peerage and other royal lists.​

Other Consequences

Andrew was served notice to vacate his home, Royal Lodge at Windsor, and will be relocated to another, less prestigious royal property.​

The palace emphasized this was done in sympathy with victims and survivors of abuse, regardless of Andrew’s continued denial of the allegations against him.​

Andrew Windsor, as of October 31, 2025, holds none of his previous royal titles or honors, has lost the right to his former ceremonial styles, and has been removed from official peerage listings and his royal residence."

You know who else can't use royal titles??  MOST OF US!!!  His punishment is that he will have to live only somewhat more privileged than your average first world citizen.  That's it.  AFAIK there are no plans to have him drawn and quartered.  Nor is there any indication that prison might be in his future.  He isn't to the best of my knowledge, restricted from driving or attending concerts or dining at restaurants or adopting a dog.

It would appear that the USA is not unique in our white guys believing in their own superiority.  The more powerful white guy in Great Britain decided that the proper punishment for raping and abusing children was the less powerful white guy would have to restricted to level of living that is more comfortable than most but, less comfortable than some minorities and women experience.

Oh the horror!!!!!

Location Location Location

 Washington D.C. is a government town.  A staggering amount of the area's economy is dependent on the government.  Defense industry, intelligence, federal LEO, military, and electoral governance account for primary and secondary income streams.  

An awful lot of the real estate in and around D.C. is publicly owned so, I can assure you the concept is not novel.

In the days of horse and carriage, the days prior to paved roads and central heat&air, it was easily arguable that a grand ballroom to be used primarily by the government would be best located adjacent to the White House.  POTUS and staff could avoid the mud, the heat, the humidity, the rainstorms or the snow and throw a decent enough party.

Whether good, bad or inbetween, those days are gone.  Roads are paved and vehicles are heated or cooled as necessary.  Loading and unloading can be done inside/under cover.  Communications infrastructure - wired, wireless and, internet - makes most everything available most anywhere.

So what could possibly be the reason for co-locating a grand ballroom whose need is questionable and the White House?  What could have been so necessary as to justify the demolition of such a historic and storied structure as the East Wing of the White House?  I would suggest that the reason(s) for the location of the ballroom, the reason for the destruction of a historic property boil down to "flooding the zone".

Felon47 is willing to destroy your history to continue to obscure his role in crimes committed by, with and under the watchful eye of Jeffery Epstein.  The ballroom could have been built anywhere in the D.C. area.  An argument could be made that Manhattan would have made more sense as a location for state dinners and parties due to the proximity of the UN and consulates etc.  However, building it that way would not have provoked the Epstein obscuring outrage that destroying the East Wing and gardens does.  

1600 Pennsylvania Ave does not appear to me to be anywhere near the optimal location of a grand ballroom suitable for state dinners.  It is simply the best place to try to change the national conversation, the demands for the release of the Epstein files.  

For me, it ain't gonna work.

Taking Turns

 Remember how this (mis)administration tried to erase the history of the Tuskegee Airmen?  

Remember how this (mis)administration has tried to obscure the contributions of women in the military and other fields?

Remember how this (mis) administration has tried to eliminate the history of the indigenous populations in this country?

Remember how a lot of us suggested that sooner or later they would come after other historical things they found inconvenient regardless of whose feelings were hurt?

Remember how a lot of folk said we were exaggerating?

The East Wing of the White House is gone - torn down,  Without ceremony, without approval of the American people or the organizations that are in place to protect historical physical property, without submitting plans Felon47 ordered and effected the demolition of the East Wing of the White House.

The real question is what will you learn from this.  Felon47 and his toadies are loyal only to him and money.  Things that are valuable to you, whether that is sentimental or monetary value or physical value apart from the monetary, mean nothing to them unless they are already in the process of stealing them from you.  That is the only rational takeaway.  What you want or value or love is of no consequence at all to the reich-wing.  Only Felon47 and money are worthy of consideration for this criminal cabal.

That's what you voted for.

How Much Are You Willing To Swallow (not porn)

 

I'm not being paid.

I would love to be paid to do what I am going to do anyway.  It could be George Soros or a polka dotted pig from two galaxies over.  I don't care.  If such an entity would like to add to my bank account, everything from a penny to the GDP of the planet can go right into my account with no bitching from me.  Of course, that seems horribly unlikely since most of us would not understand the idea of paying for that which would be free and is going to happen regardless of payment status.  There was a time when I was regularly paid to write my essays.  I certainly accepted that money but when the pay quit, I kept writing.  No one has ever paid me to protest.  I protest anyway.  

I do not hate America.

I am a multi-enlistment veteran of the USN that joined voluntarily though I had some scholarship opportunities right out of high school.  The Vietnam war was still killing humans, even humans related to me.  Though I like to think I am reasonably familiar with history, I generally attribute hostile acts to specific individuals  or specific (relatively) small groups rather than declaring the USA as a place to hate.

I have no desire for everyone to be Trans.

I am not Trans and I am quite happy with my heterosexuality.  I probably know more Trans folk than come immediately to mind but I don't ask because as a general rule, I don't care.  So far, I have never identified someone's gender claim as a basis for negativity in my life.  The same could be said about any consensual sex. Any 2 or 20 folk in any mix of genders can sex the hell out of each other without affecting me at all. 

I don't want open borders.

A couple of decades or more ago I first observed that to be a nation, you had to have defensible and defended borders.  At the first mention of the idiotic border wall, I suggested that we could do better than relying on 10k year old technology especially since the first time the tech was defeated was probably also 10k years ago.

I have been hired for reasons other than my Blackness.

Some jobs I have had I was better at than damn near anyone else doing the job.  Other jobs found me being competent but having the distinction of showing up most every time I was expected to be there.  Not one time in my life nor, if they are to be believed, the lives of my siblings, has anyone ever suggested within range of my perception that I was hired solely because I am Black.

For as long as I can remember, I have heard stereotypical descriptions of the desires or habits of  Black people, poor people, Democrats, Southerners, etc etc.  Somehow, no matter how many of the groups I happened to fall into, the stereotypes were unlikely to apply to me.  Sometimes I would be hard pressed to find anyone that fit the descriptions.  Generally, the frequency of the stereotypes being true or accurate were about the same as for individuals not in whatever group being allegedly described.

There is a traditional term for those who make claims that are demonstrably, verifiably false.  Those people are liars.  You might attempt to be charitable towards them and explain away their misconstruals as mistakes or misunderstanding.  Nope, they are lying and for the most part, they know they are lying.  They are simply more concerned with "winning" the argument or discussion than they are with accuracy or fairness.

But in truth, those folks don't matter.  What matters is you and the titular question of this essay.  Those folks are knowingly and openly lying to you (and possibly about you).  I'm curious as to just how much of it you are willing to swallow along with the social and economic abuses that affect you negatively even though they are supposedly targeting the "others".  How long will you continue to beg to be lied to?  How long will you pretend there is anything to the obviously false statements?  What will it take for you American-up and start siding with your neighbors who demonstrate the falsity in the statements of those who would attempt to spread hate?

They are not lying because they expect to convince anyone.  They are certainly not expecting to convince me.  I have presented sufficient written evidence to identify that as a non-starter.  They are lying because they can.  Because you will not hold them to account.  Because they hope to convince you to hate the people they irrationally hate.  As long as you will continue to swallow it, they will continue to feed it to you.  It will never be more true or reasonable or fair or right.  It will never be justifiable.  It will only ever be a naked power grab.  The irony is that those who have more power than you will use those same exact tactics on you as soon as they are more worried about you than they are about me - regardless of the reason.

THOSE WHO CAN, PROTEST

 A lot of humans have issue with self-fulfilling prophecies.  They will say stuff like, "Why bother protesting?  What little I can do will make no difference." They then proceed to do nothing and lo and behold, it makes no difference.  Would it have been the same if they had actually done something??  I assure you, we'll never know.

What we can and do know, is that those who oppose the criminal, irrational and self-enriching actions of Felon47 are a very large group.  The NO KINGS protests of 10/18/25 proved that there is a large number of humans - citizens of the USA as well as many other nations - who are in strong and public disagreement with the actions and attitudes of him and his supporters.

If your reason for not protesting or for not doing what you can to support the protesters was that there were too few in opposition to make a difference, 10/18 disappeared that reason.  7 million or more of your closest friends, your family members, your neighbors all showed up in public at their own expense to display their dissatisfaction with this criminal cabal.

Now, I happen to know from conversations I have been a part of and things I have observed that a slew of those in opposition to the USA's worst mistake ever, for some very good reasons did not show up to the protests.  Some appeared to be Hispanic and though they were legal, citizens even, they knew they could be wrongfully arrested and abused with zero repercussions for the LEOs.  Some had more mundane reasons.  They have children or elderly or disabled individuals that depend on them and cannot be left alone.  Regardless of reason, the 7 million number being tossed around is at best, a small percentage of those actually in opposition to the orange clown.

Now though, now we have some idea of the scope of the resistance.  Because we attended this protest, we might have inspired enough hope to encourage more of our neighbors to attend the next one, to take a more active role in their opposition.  If all the protest accomplished was to let the back-benchers know they were not alone in their opposition, it would have been worth doing.  Hopefully, it also twisted into knots the intestines of those hangers-on who had it made known to them that Trump and trumpism will not be around to protect them forever.

Sophistry and Obfuscation

Once more, my friend Bill Foster has posted something to his Substack that I think deserves a wider audience.

Sophistry and Obfuscation

Why the Actual Defense Budget is More Than Double What You Think It Is

William E Foster

Oct 08, 2025

There has been a lot of talk lately about U.S. defense spending reaching one trillion dollars under the big, beautiful bill. Unfortunately, the amount we spend on defense is routinely underestimated by liberal and conservative sources of like. In recent months, even folks I like and respect and generally find truthful like NPR, Ezra Klein and Jon Stewart have gotten it wrong.

The number you will hear most often is the Department of Defense base budget. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 that was $826 billion. Nuclear weapons are not included in the defense budget as they are under the Department of Energy. If you add that $47 billion, you get $874 billion. You will see this number quite often. The big, beautiful building adds $150 billion to that figure.

In the aftermath of 9-11, the Bush administration pulled one of the biggest bait and switches in history with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Now, I admit that it’s an effective trick. Is Homeland Security defense spending? I would argue that it is right there in the name. What could be more basic to the defense of our nation than the security of the homeland and the protection of our borders? If it makes everyone feel better, we can talk about security spending instead of defense spending, but it seems obvious to me that it should be included. That figure is $112.4 billion in FY 24, up from $30 billion in 2004, its first full year of operation. Under the big, beautiful bill, DHS spending would increase $43.8 billion in 2026.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is not included in the DoD budget. Obviously, caring for those who served in the military is part of the cost of defense and to not include this in the budget is sophistry at best and more probably deliberate deception. The VA budget for FY 2024 was $325 billion. FY 2026 is unclear, but it looks like $369.3 billion. Military retirement pay is in the exact same situation, not included for the purposes of deliberate obfuscation. In Fy 2024, pensions for retired military members cost $260 billion. To be clear, I received 1.015384615384615e-7% of that money.

There are also significant costs for International Affairs throughout the budget that are actually defense spending. These include additional war funding because none of the obscene amounts spent so far include fighting a war. It also includes foreign aid, assistance to foreign militaries, embassy guards, etc. This includes programs like Foreign Military Financing ($3.3 billion), aid to Ukraine (about $107 billion so far), and another $42.36 billion, which includes paying for genocide in Israel.

Finally, we must remember we are issuing Treasury Bills for all this spending, which means we are paying interest on all this spending. This is hard to calculate, but interest on the national debt exceeded defense spending this year as the largest item in the federal budget. Interest is projected to cost $870 billion in FY 2024. The base DoD budget is 13% of the budget. We know now that defense spending is higher than 13%, as that is only the base DoD budget. We want to err on the conservative side, so I’ll use a figure of 20%. That means that $174 billion in the amount of interest on the national debt we pay related to defense spending.

We add all that together and we get:

Defense and DoE nuclear weapons: $1.24 trillion

Homeland Security: $156.2 billion

Veterans’ Affairs: $369.3 billion

Military pensions: $260 billion

International affairs: $150 billion

Interest: $174 billion

Grand Total: $2,349,000,000

This information is difficult to find and parse and this took me awhile. Even for a simple question such as, “what is the FY 2024 VA budget,” I received six different answers (in the same ballpark). You can argue about whether certain things should be included but it is quite clear that the U.S. budget is not $1 trillion but is somewhere far to the north of that and at least double. We should also note that there is credible research done by Stockholm International Peace research Institute that shows that actual spending demonstrated in the National Income and Products Accounts (NIPA) – the database where checks are written – shows that money spent is always much higher than what is budgeted. I chose to omit that analysis in the interest of coming up with a conservative figure that is certainly at the low end of the range of possibilities.

How does this compare to other countries? The official figure for the U.S. is that we spend 3.4% of our GDP on defense but if spending is more than twice the commonly acknowledged level then that means we spend more like 7% of our GDP. That means as a percentage of GDP, we exceed every nation except Israel, Ukraine and Algeria (possibly Russia depending on the figure). We outspend China by over $2 trillion. In fact, this budget is the equal of the next, …. I don’t know. I wanted to say how many countries our budget equals but the list I have only goes to 40. The other 39 countries in the top 40 equal to $1.48 trillion. The United States outspends the 40 highest military budgets in the world, combined, by a trillion dollars. The United States probably spends as much as the rest of the world combined and we outspend any meaningful combination of enemies by at least a factor of four.

Let us look at this spending in comparison to some other U.S. Spending. Social Security, which comes from its own trust fund, is only $1.4 trillion. All health care together is about $900 billion. Total interest is about the same. All “welfare” together is about $650 billion. The point is that defense is talked about as a significant cost, but it is beyond that. It is more than double any other single item in the ten largest costs the U.S. government incurs.

The public relations budget is illustrative of the scale of this spending. The Department of Defense spends only about .5% of its budget on advertising, but that’s enough to fund 5,000 people and an almost billion dollar a year budget, over half of total federal spending on advertising. That includes such things as paying $53 million over four years on patriotic displays at sporting events, paying retired generals to appear on media programs, even inventing a fictional expert during the Cold War (look up Guy Sims Fitch- fascinating). The DoD employees more people in its PR department than the Department of Education has in total. This is a tremendous effort, and it is all aimed at one thing: convincing you that all of this spending is necessary for your freedom and not mere socialism.

I’ve made this argument before, and people get a bit rowdy about it. My point is merely that socialism is government ownership of the means of production. Boeing last year got 36% of its total revenues from the government and it’s the lowest of them. RTX (Raytheon) got 100% of its revenues from militaries, 75% from the U.S. and the rest from foreign militaries, but those are mostly paid for by America. In fact, 90% of our foreign aid is not humanitarian but is a Pentagon jobs program in which we give Egypt or Saudi Arabia money, and they spend it on U.S. weapons. Lockheed Martin gets 73% of its revenue from the U.S. government. General Dynamics 69%. Northrop Grumman 87%. There is no sense in which these are private companies. Yes, they are publicly traded but they are 100% dependent on the government.

At this scale, this is socialism. I am not against that. I am a democratic socialist. I just want my socialism to help educate and feed and provide medical care for normal people. I don’t want inefficient, bloated Pentagon socialism that distributes money to national security consultants and contractors while ordinary folks bleed in America and poor folk all over the world get bombed.

And there it is. The Blue Angels are cool, but they are designed to make you think how cool and awesome they are and not to think of them incinerating a wedding. We spend all these dollars and stimulate our economy but it’s poor, mostly brown, folks who pay the price for it. One of the saddest things I ever heard was a little Afghan kid talking about how she prayed for cloudy days because on sunny days the drones could see you.

Here is a fact. In 21 years in the military, I didn’t do anything for your freedom. We are constantly told that the military is for freedom. But there wasn’t and isn’t one single thing in the Middle East worth the life of my friend or the wounds the others I know suffered. Contrary to the non-stop deluge of “patriotic” nonsense we all see all the time, no one died protecting your freedom. They protected your interests. They protected your economy or your gas or your job, but your freedom? That has not been in danger since the Civil War.

Dwight Eisenhower said this: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children ... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

It is common at every major event for someone to thank the military without whom the event would not happen, and I wouldn’t have the freedom to write this. Bullshit. Nothing in American history since 1900 has affected American’s freedom, except our own government at times. I am not saying that we should not have engaged in WW II but even in that major event, had we not entered, your freedom was never in danger. That is simply pernicious hyperbole meant to stop you from questioning our spending priorities.

What is real freedom? What does it mean? We are paying heavily for the military we are encouraged today to worship, paying for a military as large as the rest of the world combined. Is true freedom merely existence in a democracy? Or is it access to a job? To health care? To the chance for your family to have a better life than yours? Ask yourself what would give you more freedom, a universal health care system that costs you nothing (you could easily pay for it with cuts in defense) and an educational system that cost you nothing (as most Western European nations have) or a military the size of the next ninety nations combined? Imagine a world in which your health care and your education cost almost nothing. How much freer would you feel with no health insurance or school loans, something that would be easily affordable with a military only as large as 50% of the rest of the world instead of 100%? Every time a government building flies a giant flag or the military holds a parade or flies a jet over a football game, it costs money. It is your money and false patriotism that is designed to keep you from noticing that is not patriotism at all. It is creeping fascism. It makes you feel good and simultaneously suppresses the urge to ask, what does freedom really mean?

Worship of the military is death to a democracy. Washington knew this and that’s why we didn’t even have a standing army until after WW II. Having a military is a regretful necessity and we should begrudge every goddamn dime we spend on it because every dime is a theft from educating our young and preparing our nation for the future. We can have a strong military, but it should be as lean, as mean, and as small as possible to protect our interests. It should be for defending America not for defending the interests of an empire. We should never, ever glorify it but solemnly acknowledge the sacrifices people make and hope for a future where those sacrifices are not necessary. Patriotism is not blind worship of the troops but educating oneself about what our military actually does and asking hard questions about what freedom really means. Many more of our citizens are imprisoned by poverty, by hunger, by a lack of hope and opportunity than were ever threatened by foreign enemies. It is time to get our priorities straight.