The Bloated Defense Department
The so-called Defense Department does not live up to its name; instead, the acronym and word Bloated describe this behemoth and its budget. We the people need defense, but the trillion tax dollars we spend a year do not provide it. Instead they pay for:
Some 800 US overseas military bases
Endless wars
The Nuclear Arsenal
Billions for Bombers and Battleships
These do nothing to make us secure. They have benefited few people in the US or the world, apart from bloated arms manufacturers and merchants, bloated military contractors, bloated generals, bloated politicians, and those in the high echelons of bloated corporate power.
The Defense We Need
We need a strong, universal free-of-charge public health system to help defend us against COVID-19 and other health problems; the bloated Department steals resources that could provide the true security for a healthy population.
We need defense against climate disruption and heating of the planet. The bloated Department aggravates these problems by emitting more greenhouse gases than any other institution in the world and more than many entire nations.
We needed defense against Wall Street predators when they stole home ownership from millions of people – especially people of color and other working class people – during the 2008 economic meltdown. The bloated Department offered no defense.
Women especially need defense against sexual harassment, assault and domestic violence. The bloated Department exacerbates these problems: military culture promotes sexism, Military Sexual Trauma is rampant; the military protects sexual perpetrators of women and men within its ranks .
Veterans who have survived the endless and earlier wars need to heal from physical, emotional and moral injury. The resources offered are inadequate and often inappropriate. The bloated Department’s promotion of war and hyper-masculinity tends to aggravate veterans’ trauma.
The bloated Department did not even defend against a military attack on its own headquarters on September 11, 2001. Nobody in the Pentagon lost their job over that “failure”.
Truth in Language
Toward the goal of ending war and militarism, let us have truth in language. Bloated is an accurate word and acronym for the Department that oversees the enormously wasteful and destructive military. As the COVID pandemic makes painfully clear, funds now squandered on the military are urgently needed to meet the real security needs of US people – for healthcare, housing, infrastructure, and food security.
Let us also stop using the term defense expenditures when referring to costs that do not defend human beings from real problems that we face. Military or war expenditures are accurate terms.
Changes in language in our writings, speeches, conversations and on social media can help change thinking and help lead to right action.