Where US Militarism & Wealth Inequality Merge
A recent 5/14/23 NYT article by Talmon Joseph Smith entitled The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners, indicates that at the end of 2022 the top 1% holds about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and is predominantly white. The growing gap between the very rich and everyone else is nothing new. Bernie Sanders in a Guardian article published on March 29, 2021 entitled, The rich-poor gap in America is obscene. So let’s fix it – here’s how, indicates “the top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. While millions of Americans have lost their jobs and incomes during the pandemic, over the past year 650 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1.3T. The unfortunate reality is that we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society, where a handful of billionaires have enormous wealth and power while working families have been struggling in a way we have not seen since the Great Depression. This situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic.” But it has not just been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Tonight we feature disturbing findings of the 5/24/23 report from the Institute for Policy Studies, The Warfare State How Funding for Militarism Compromises Our Welfare. Joining Bringing Light Into Darkness is the lead author of the report, Lindsay Koshgarian, who in a fascinating and well informed interview, brings to light the disturbing reality that draws a straight line between excessive military spending and the deteriorating quality of life for our US majority population.
Referencing the words and warnings of Dr King’s 4/4/67 speech, our guest suggests that history shows that our government uses violence or the threat of violence to achieve its aims, instead of looking for ways to prevent problems or ways to support and help people strive. Lindsay provides report findings that suggest that proof of the concerns lies in the observation that the US foreign policy driven interests in the rest of the world has been, and still is, guided by a militarism first approach and also by a wealth protecting approach “. We have 750 military installations around the world, a number that dwarfs our adversaries, and that is how we are making our worldwide influence felt warns our guest.
While diplomacy and humanitarian aid should be our priority investment if we are trying to avoid war and conflict and seek peaceful resolutions to world problems, we instead find a reverse ratio of 16:1 in dollars invested in militarism compared to government spending in the discretionary budget for diplomacy and humanitarian aid. And the reciprocal effect is essentially a wealth transfer from the lower and middle class to the financial elite, a defunding, if you will, of badly needed quality of life improvements for the majority population of the public sector as an unavoidable side effect from the extreme levels of wealth inequality that are fueled by this military industrial complex. Please join us for this important dialogue and critique of our Warfare heavy National Budget.