The return of military rule / by kevin murray

There are nearly two hundred countries in the world that have all sorts of governments to rule their people, from monarchies, to dictatorships, to republics, to democracies, and all types of governance reflecting in principle, that same sort of thing.  But, that said, the reality is that despite what a Constitution might say, or the form of government that a given country claims to represent, more times than not, the actual power behind the throne, so to speak, is held in a very few hands, and typically those hands are either the military directly, or indirectly.

 

A case in point is America, in which most people would consider America to be a country that is considered to be democratic, though by statue it is actually a Constitutional Republic.   In fact, America likes to point out with pride that this is the country with the oldest written Constitution amongst all nations, and its Constitution is the highest law of the land which is the governing document of this great nation. 

 

However, as might be expected, over time, America has changed, so that, though there are three recognized branches of government, which are the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, what doesn't seem to get mentioned so much is how gargantuan the military is in America, in which the 2019 Defense budget for America is $716 billion, despite the fact that America's last Congressional declared war was for WW II.   To put into perspective how much $716 billion is, recognize that the only other country that spends even $100 billion on its Defense budget is China at $178 billion, and China has a population that is more than 1 billion greater than America.

 

The true test as to whether America is actually devolving into military rule really comes down to whether or not any politician could ever be elected, or any legislature could ever enact, a draconian budget cut of 50% to the defense budget to take effect, in the next fiscal year.  To keep this in perspective, a 50% drop in America's defense budget would still provide America with a defense budget twice that of China's, and would be about the same size as it was in 2002, all at a time in which America is not involved in any world war, and is realistically in imminent danger from no country.

 

While there have been a few legislature representatives or even Presidential candidates that have railed against the technology-military-industrial complex, none of these have ever made any headway against such, and probably none of these into the foreseeable future, ever will.   This would indicate that the businesses, technology corporations, and the military, itself, are combined into a conglomerate that is so powerful and so influential, that they effectively are in charge of our foreign policies, and the budget so created is a budget preapproved by these entities.

 

So then, while America is loathe to admit to it, it is effectively run at its highest level by that technology-military-industrial complex, of which, as long as none of these three branches of this Constitutional government, does anything to negatively impact them, than all will be well; whereas, if instead, the people or any of those three branches should attempt to seriously rein in the budget and the influence of the technology-military-industrial complex, Americans will find that to their dismay that this is in reality, a country already under military rule.