By Eric Zuesse
A new Morning Consult/POLITICO survey, published on 26 April, indicates that most American voters support the military-industrial complex more than they support any other recipient of U.S. federal government spending. The military-industrial complex includes almost all federal contractors, the top ten of which, in the ranking of the “Top 100 Contractors of the U.S. federal government”, are all military suppliers: 1: Lockheed Martin. 2: Boeing. 3: General Dynamics. 4: Raytheon. 5: Northrop Grumman. 6: McKesson. 7: United Technologies. 8: L-3. 9: Bechtel. 10: BAE. Those ten firms would be the likeliest main beneficiaries from today’s America’s extremely pro-military-industrial-
2,032 American voters were asked in the poll a list of objectives that might be so important as to justify “the government must shut down.” Only one single objective was close to being supported by an absolute majority of the respondents, so that the government’s going to shut-down would, in those respondents’ view, be justified for Congress to do in order to achieve that given objective, which was stated as: “Increase funding for defense and homeland security.” 47% of respondents (just shy of an absolute majority, which is 50+%) chose that goal as being so drastically important; 39% chose instead the answer, “NOT important enough to prompt a shutdown.” 14% chose “Don’t Know / No Opinion.” In other words: 47% were in support of any member of Congress who refused to vote to fund the government unless the proposed legislation to keep the government going would “Increase funding for defense and homeland security” (increase funding that’s going mainly to those ten firms). Increased spending on the military-industrial complex (which is incontestably the most corrupt portion of the U.S. federal government) is so extremely important to 47% of America’s voters, according to this poll. Those 47% are like a huge cheering section for those ten corporate stocks: they’re willing to shut down the federal government if the taxpayer-money going to those ten firms isn’t increased.
The second-highest-supported listed objective, “Continue to make cost-sharing payments to health insurance companies,” was supported by only 42% of respondents. Exactly the same percentage, 42%, chose “NOT important enough to prompt a shutdown.” So: only “Increase funding for defense and homeland security” was supported, in this poll, by more people than opposed it — and it was supported by 47% and opposed by only 39%; so, it was supported by 47/39, or 1.21 times as many respondents, as the number of respondents who opposed it. The proponents of increasing the military-industrial-complex don’t merely dominate; they clearly dominate.
The third-highest-supported objective, at 35%, was “Provide health care benefits to retired coal miners.” 44% said that that goal isn’t worth shutting down the government in order for it to be attained. I.e.: more think that those miners should be left to die than think that continuing to provide for their black-lung treatments (etc.) is essential.
The lowest support of all, at only 27%, was “Fund a wall along the Mexican border.” Donald Trump’s alleged support for that is shared by far fewer Americans than oppose it. 61% of respondents on that say it’s “NOT important enough to prompt a shutdown.”
Americans, according to this poll, very strongly, by a 47% to 39% margin, absolutely demand “Increase funding for defense and homeland security,” but by an even stronger 48% to 32% margin, they do NOT absolutely demand “Decrease funding for domestic programs.” (This poll did not inquire regarding whether there is more support for increasing domestic programs than for decreasing those programs.)
Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who, as the Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had been deceived into believing the military-industrial-complex’s hired allegations in 2002 about Saddam Hussein and “WMD,” became afterward an opponent of that very same operation which had deceived him, has since said (at 11:06– on the video here) about that operation which had deceived him:
It is a corporate complex that is growing and it surrounds everything else, including what I call fateful decision-making. … You are serving the ulterior purposes of the leadership of the country. … You are serving corporate and commercial interests, you are serving the interests of people who bureaucratically are seeking power within the structure, and you are serving the interests of what is basically an incompetent governing process.
This latest poll makes very clear that the majority of the U.S. public are satisfied with that situation, or else don’t know that it’s even the case. Of course, if they don’t know the reality about this matter, then they’ve been deceived by the newsmedia they’re being exposed to, and/or by whatever other sources have influenced them regarding it; but, otherwise, they really do love the military-industrial-complex, and they authentically demand that more and more of their tax-dollars go toward paying for it.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Image Credit: Anthony Freda Art
That’s a lie.
This following the poll that most Americans can no longer think for themselves – coincidence?
Just 2,032… wow that minute sampling surely doesn’t speak for ALL AMERICANS. And you know that all were legal voters how?
Stanley Milgram proved, with others after him such as the Stanford Experiment, that Americans by a massive margin, and in Milgrams experiments, EVERY American, will be willing to kill without reason if told to do so.
We’ve been conditioned to not question or fight “authorities”. It’s not only an American weakness and the reason 100 million were slaughtered in the Chinese and Russian communist purges. TPTB know humanity’s hard wired frailties. – I’m not defending the ignorance of Americans who don’t “know thyself”.
Have you seen this Corbett classic “How to Herd Your Tax Cattle”?
The little kids pledging allegiance to the flag around the 5 min mark is hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAJT77FSvxs
Excellent point !
Most are unaware of this study done by Milgram and will be shocked to see the end result if they ever look into it. I’m sure it is available on the internet.
There was a study done with monkeys who were punished if they tried to get the bananas that hung high in the cage.(I know that sounds like satire, but it’s not. It was a real study, and these results are also shocking) Please research these two and it will explain some of our contradictory and strange behavior. ( This is meant for all readers, not just you madrino)
Sad but true, as a group we are nothing but a bunch of monkeys. What’s important to remember is that we still have millions of individuals who stand out and stand up.
Too many CIA-glorification and reality-programmes silicon-breasted bim*os watching – ZNWO Holly*wood has turned most people globally into brainless extreme violence/sex/drug-junkies!
The devil is in the details of the study. On a national scale, we are seeing polls that disagree with each other by as much as 40 points. We have utterly fake news on every mainstream media “news” outlet (with the exception of RT).
I don’t buy a damn thing this poll is reporting. Give me 30 minutes in front of a crowd detailing documented federal crimes and I’ll give you a room full of people that will vote to shut down the federal government permanently.
How many of that 47% know 9/11 was an inside job? Much less Sandy Hook, OKC, Gladio, Gladio B, etc. My guess is not even 1 in 100 of that 47% would have a firm grasp of 9/11.
This poll doesn’t show American ‘support’ for imperial violence and the MIC, it’s fear based control. Can it be a coincidence Turkey, base of operations for Gladio B, experienced a rash of terror attacks in the run up to the referendum that conferred dictator status to Erdogan. Few Turks would normally accept that either.
War is a Racket. How many know that the US military is a criminal enterprise that could have taught Al Capone a thing or two according to Smedley Butler as he explains the REAL purpose of the military during his military career? Yet, Allen Dulles was right when he said Americans don’t read (unless it’s predigested propaganda and indoctrination in every paper of the last 200+ years and in radio, movies and TV since it’s inception).
True. 9/11 is the “proximate” reason today, or further down stream to war and militarism as social engineering hidden under the skirts of national defense. This monster is older than the US. Outright British or French style colonial conquest for uber elite hegemony doesn’t fly in the west in this era, so we get synthetic terrorism.
At the core of manipulation under specious pretenses would be dumbing down and control of information flows. If we can’t change that, we’re stuck.
There are liars, Damn Liars and then there are statisticians–Mark Twain
“…The power to declare war is a serious responsibility. Why were the framers so vague in defining the parameters of war and the conditions under which it could be declared? Section 8, Clause 11 is the
only place of significance where warfare is mentioned in the Constitution. Little wonder this power has been abused. Luther Martin [one of Maryland’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention] protested:
‘…the congress have also a power given them to raise and support armies, without any limitation as to numbers, and without any restriction in time of peace. Thus, sir, this plan of government, instead of guarding against a standing army, that engine of arbitrary power, which has so often and so successfully been used for the subversion of freedom, has in its formation given it an express and constitutional sanction….’40
“John Quincy Adams prophetically predicted the consequences of America’s international military entanglements:
‘America … has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings…. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.… She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication,
in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors, and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change
from liberty to force; the frontlet on her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished luster, the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer theruler of her own spirit.’41
“Because the framers provided no Biblical parameters, unbiblical warfare has been the rule ever since. Following is a list of the countries bombed by the United States since World War II….
“From 1945 to the present, the United States has bombed nineteen different countries under the guise of defending America’s sovereignty and promoting democracy. But America is none the better for it, and not one of these countries has become a legitimate democracy – not that this would be anything to celebrate. Something is amiss. Wars fought for political gain or financial profit can only be classified as ungodly acts of aggression….
“Without the [unbiblical] constitutional power to borrow, these and all subsequent ungodly wars could have perhaps been averted….”
For more, see online Chapter 4 “Article 1: Legislative Usurpation” of “Bible Law vs. the United States
Constitution: The Christian Perspective.” Click on my name, then our website. Go to our Online Books page, click on the top entry, and scroll down to Chapter 4.
Then find out how much you really know about the Constitution as compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey in the right-hand sidebar and receive a complimentary copy of a book that examines the Constitution by the Bible.
This poll measures the effectiveness of the propaganda matrix. I am sure TPTB will take corrective action should there be significant deviation. The vast majority are totally stupid, good result. Any corrective action can be focussed on keeping the sheep away from the very small number who think for themselves – this means you lot.
Who sponsored this poll, the military-industrial complex?
I’m afraid the great majority of the American public are ideologically constipated and need a quick information enema! Nothing like a little reality to cure your gross ignorance.
it is the military-industrial complex who has the money (look at the budget distribution) and tools for introducing something like 9/11, organizing DHS, etc. And it is the simple folks, who brainwashed marches into wars and kills in the name of ‘peace’, following the orders of the military-industrial complex. As long as the order followers continue their ‘job’, there can’t be any peace on the entire planet, no matter how much money is stolen from taxpayers by the military-industrial complex for continuing killings in the false name of ‘peace’.
Either the poll was fixed or the populace answering truly wants to be under the full control of Satan.