Americans Too Fat To Fight “War On Terror”

Little Boy (left) and Fat Man (right)--(Image from Flickr, by Marcin Wichary)

Obesity or Jingoism Problem?

According to the Harper’s Index, 75% of Americans aged 17 to 24 are ineligible to join the military. The most common reasons, in order, are obesity, drug or alcohol problems, and low “aptitude.”

Since obesity is more common among the poor, one might wonder if the days of the “economic draft” are coming to an end.

Gay Cannon Fodder

In honor of the one-year anniversary of Modern School, I am reposting some of my favorite articles from the past year. The following was written when the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell seemed imminent. Now it has finally happened. My commentary is still relevant.

Gay Cannon Fodder

From WikiCommons

Congress’ repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is being celebrated by LGBT activists and liberals as a major civil rights victory. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) was clearly prejudicial and abusive and its repeal is certainly a triumph over discrimination. However, it is a twisted sort of victory that gives a new group of people the right to slaughter poor people throughout the world, have their own limbs blown off, suffer devastating cognitive and psychological trauma, and die, to protect the property and profits of the rich. (Transgender folks still won’t be able to sever, er, serve their country).

Victory for Imperialism—Victory for War Mongers

What the left has not acknowledged is the context, history and broader social implications of this “victory” for gay rights. The end of the ban on gays in the military comes at a time when the U.S. is actively engaged in two overt foreign wars (Iraq and AfPak), numerous covert wars (e.g., Yemen, Somalia), and posturing for potential new wars (Iran and Korea). Yet the military hasn’t been able to recruit enough new soldiers to maintain the existing wars and has resorted to “stop-lossing” battle weary soldiers, some of whom are already showing signs of PTSD. Therefore, the new policy can be seen as a move to recruit and retain more cannon fodder, lesbian and gay cannon fodder.

Poster by Mike Licht

The repeal of DADT is being spun as a victory for U.S. imperialism and nationalism. Obama said that the move will help make the U.S. military “the best led and best trained fighting force the world has ever known.” Joe Lieberman, one of the most hawkish members of congress, used the repeal to leverage his standing with democratic and liberal voters, who have mostly written him off as a right wing ninny.  “We’ve righted a wrong,” he said. “Today we’ve done justice.”

While the repeal of DADT will theoretically allow gays to serve openly in the military without threat of punishment by their superiors, discrimination and persecution will almost certainly continue, just as it does in mainstream society. In fact, in the intense social microcosm of the military, where aggression and violence are not only sanctioned, but encouraged, harassment and assaults on gay soldiers is virtually assured. Consider the case of women serving in the military, who experience high rates of rape and sexual assault.

Victory for Gay Bourgeoisie

Poster by Carlos Latuff

Middle glass LGBT folks have the luxury of partying and celebrating this “victory” since they won’t be going to Iraq or Afghanistan. For those in the privileged classes, the U.S. war machine is just an abstraction, something they can ignore or romanticize, like homelessness and hunger. For working class and poor LGBT folks, especially the unemployed and marginally employed, the situation is much more real. The job market is still awful and there really aren’t a lot of opportunities out there for making a living, except for the military, which will now accept almost anyone, regardless of education and experience.

“A lot of poor and working-class queers with no means to go to college will end up in America’s two endless wars,” says gay writer and activist, Tommi Avicolli Mecca. “As the saying goes, ‘Rich kids end up in college, poor ones in the military.’ Statistics seem to bear that out, with more than half to two-thirds (depending on which study you believe) of recruits coming from lower middle-class or poor households.”

Military Recruiters at Gay Straight Alliance Meetings?

Iraq War Victim (Image by Bird Eye)

Meanwhile, now that DADT has been repealed, those who oppose ROTC and Jr. ROTC programs have lost the one thin thread they had to justify banning ROTC at school. If the military no longer discriminates, then their campus propaganda arms, ROTC and Jr ROTC, can longer be seen as discriminatory, either, and should be allowed on campus, at least by this reasoning. Many believe that the end of DADT will usher in a new era of collaboration between university campuses and ROTC programs.

Now the anti-ROTC movement will have to focus on anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, and class-based arguments, as it should have all along. An organization like the military, that is dedicated to slaughter and plunder for the benefit of capital, does not become legitimate simply by opening its doors to a persecuted minority. The problem is that the public is much more sympathetic to discrimination arguments than anti-militarist and anti-imperialist ones, creating a hard row to hoe for the anti-ROTC movement.

On a recent radio interview, Mecca brought up the possibility that military recruiters might now start visiting high school gay-straight alliance meetings. Now that the military is open to lesbian and gay recruits, this is certainly a possibility. If so, this will probably occur more at working class and low income schools where the students have fewer and more tenuous opportunities after graduation.

Permanent War, Permanent Recession

The British economy grew by only 0.5% in the first quarter of 2011 and contracted by 0.5% the quarter prior, the WSWS reported today, causing many to concede that Britain is teetering on the edge of a “double dip recession.” The situation in the U.S. was not much better, with anemic first quarter growth of only 1.8%, following a decline of 3.1% the previous quarter.

If these numbers don’t sound worrisome enough, consider that the average time an American worker stays unemployed is now 39 weeks—the longest period on record. This has been especially hard on youth (ages 16-24), whose jobless rate was 18.4% last year—also a record high. Or consider this: Real earnings in the UK have contracted in each of the past four years, something the British haven’t seen since the 1870s, with household incomes predicted to decline another 2% this year.

Despite record corporate profits, U.S. business has refused to increase hiring. Business investment last year was 15% lower than before the financial crisis began, according to the WSWS. The profits have come from downsizing, speed-ups and wage cuts, not from expanding markets. The Fed’s solution has been to keep interests rates close to zero and loan billions of dollars to U.S. businesses, creating turmoil in international financial markets. The WSWS says that this turmoil has led to warnings by international finance capitalists that there is no prospect of pre-crisis conditions returning, and has increased their demands for further austerity for the working class. In other words, the current financial “crisis” is not just a cyclical downturn, but the beginning of a deliberate large-scale restructuring of socioeconomic relations set at returning working and middle class living standards to pre-Great Depression levels.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies are engaged in numerous wars that may truly be endless. While these wars are costing the U.S. trillions of dollars (Joseph Stiglitz believes the Iraq war, alone, will cost the U.S. over $3 trillion by 2017) at a time when the government is crying poverty and threatening to slash social spending, the true costs of these wars in terms of civilian injuries and deaths, environmental contamination, loss of income, stress, PTSD and overall human suffering are immeasurable (and seemingly unimportant to most Americans). Immediately ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention those in Pakistan, Libya and elsewhere) is the necessary first step toward alleviating all of this misery (and the U.S. federal deficit). However, this is unlikely to ever occur, as there is no President who wants to be known as the quitter who “lost” Suchandsuchastan. News footage of angry mobs torching the U.S. embassy, as U.S. troops flee into waiting helicopters to be airlifted to safety, is sure to turn voters against the president who gives those orders, as well as his entire party.

This is good news for business as it means continued taxpayer subsidies for private military contractors and arms dealers and protection for petroleum producers. It also means the government can continue crying poverty, making it much easier to justify austerity for working people and to transfer wealth to the rich.

Kill the Poor: U.S. Military Spending Doubled Since 2001

A new report released by SIPRI, a Swedish think tank, indicates that U.S. military spending has nearly doubled since 2001, report Judd Legum in Think Progress.  The U.S. spent $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade. The U.S. currently spends six times more than China, the second largest military spender. Overall, the world spends $1.6 trillion on the military, with the United States spending more than the next 9 nations combined.

To see the original post, click here.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that these numbers are significantly lower than the actual expenditures. He believes that the true cost of just the Iraq war could be over $3 trillion by 2017, or $180 billion a year. Furthermore, the Swedish report does not include new wars, like the one in Libya.

As shocking as this huge waste of money is, what is left out of such an analysis is the true cost in terms of human death, injury, privation and misery. Civilians are bearing the brunt of these wars, not only in terms of casualties, but also in destroyed homes and infrastructures, job loss, environmental devastation, terror and stress. Generations of children have now grown up in Afghanistan and Iraq without knowing peace.

Poor and working class people in America also suffer from this phenomenal waste of resources. While the ruling elite demand that we live within our means by gutting education, and services for the poor, disabled and elderly, they continue to live beyond their means by spending lavishly on warfare and bloodshed to protect their financial interest abroad. There always seems to be money available for the military, but not for health care, resulting in thousands of poor people dying prematurely in the U.S. from treatable diseases and injuries.¹ Despite the end of the world scenarios being spun around the deficit, there are plenty of funds available for a new war in Libya, but we cannot afford investigators to make sure our food and workplaces are safe, resulting in thousands of deaths annually from food-borne illness and workplace accidents.² We have no problem finding money to kill and maim Iraqis with depleted uranium and white phosphorus³, but we cannot find enough to keep our own air clean, resulting in 9,000 premature deaths from air pollution each year in California alone.⁴

1.      A, 2009 study (PDF)  from Harvard Medical School said that lack of health coverage can be tied to about 45,000 deaths a year in the United States.

2.      In 2009, there were 4,340 fatal workplace injuries (compared with 5,214 in 2008).  have averaged 156 fatalities per year or about 3 percent of the revised totals. According to the Centers for Disease Control, food borne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths annually in the U.S. 1,500 of these deaths are caused by Salmonella, Listeria, and Toxoplasma.

3.      The U.S. government has admitted it used white phosphorus against Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah, according to a report by Democracy Now in violation of international law banning the use of chemical weapons.

4.      According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2 million people world-wide die prematurely each year due to air pollution, while the California Air Resources Board reports that 9,000 die in California each year from air pollution.

Gay Cannon Fodder

Image from Wiki Commons

Congress’ repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is being celebrated by LGBT activists and liberals as a major civil rights victory. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) was clearly prejudicial and abusive and its repeal is certainly a triumph over discrimination. However, it is a twisted sort of victory that gives a new group of people the right to slaughter poor people throughout the world, have their own limbs blown off, suffer devastating cognitive and psychological trauma, and die, to protect the property and profits of the rich. (Transgender folks still won’t be able to sever, er, serve their country).

Victory for Imperialism—Victory for War Mongers

What the left has not acknowledged is the context, history and broader social implications of this “victory” for gay rights. The end of the ban on gays in the military comes at a time when the U.S. is actively engaged in two overt foreign wars (Iraq and AfPak), numerous covert wars (e.g., Yemen, Somalia), and posturing for potential new wars (Iran and Korea). Yet the military hasn’t been able to recruit enough new soldiers to maintain the existing wars and has resorted to “stop-lossing” battle weary soldiers, some of whom are already showing signs of PTSD. Therefore, the new policy can be seen as a move to recruit and retain more cannon fodder, lesbian and gay cannon fodder.

Poster by Mike Licht

The repeal of DADT is being spun as a victory for U.S. imperialism and nationalism. Obama said that the move will help make the U.S. military “the best led and best trained fighting force the world has ever known.” Joe Lieberman, one of the most hawkish members of congress, used the repeal to leverage his standing with democratic and liberal voters, who have mostly written him off as a right wing ninny.  “We’ve righted a wrong,” he said. “Today we’ve done justice.”

While the repeal of DADT will theoretically allow gays to serve openly in the military without threat of punishment by their superiors, discrimination and persecution will almost certainly continue, just as it does in mainstream society. In fact, in the intense social microcosm of the military, where aggression and violence are not only sanctioned, but encouraged, harassment and assaults on gay soldiers is virtually assured. Consider the case of women serving in the military, who experience high rates of rape and sexual assault.

Victory for Gay Bourgeoisie

Poster by Carlos Latuff

Middle glass LGBT folks have the luxury of partying and celebrating this “victory” since they won’t be going to Iraq or Afghanistan. For those in the privileged classes, the U.S. war machine is just an abstraction, something they can ignore or romanticize, like homelessness and hunger. For working class and poor LGBT folks, especially the unemployed and marginally employed, the situation is much more real. The job market is still awful and there really aren’t a lot of opportunities out there for making a living, except for the military, which will now accept almost anyone, regardless of education and experience.

“A lot of poor and working-class queers with no means to go to college will end up in America’s two endless wars,” says gay writer and activist, Tommi Avicolli Mecca. “As the saying goes, ‘Rich kids end up in college, poor ones in the military.’ Statistics seem to bear that out, with more than half to two-thirds (depending on which study you believe) of recruits coming from lower middle-class or poor households.”

Military Recruiters at Gay Straight Alliance Meetings?

Iraq War Victim by Bird Eye

Meanwhile, now that DADT has been repealed, those who oppose ROTC and Jr. ROTC programs have lost the one thin thread they had to justify banning ROTC at school. If the military no longer discriminates, then their campus propaganda arms, ROTC and Jr ROTC, can longer be seen as discriminatory, either, and should be allowed on campus, at least by this reasoning. Many believe that the end of DADT will usher in a new era of collaboration between university campuses and ROTC programs.

Now the anti-ROTC movement will have to focus on anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, and class-based arguments, as it should have all along. An organization like the military, that is dedicated to slaughter and plunder for the benefit of capital, does not become legitimate simply by opening its doors to a persecuted minority. The problem is that the public is much more sympathetic to discrimination arguments than anti-militarist and anti-imperialist ones, creating a hard row to hoe for the anti-ROTC movement.

On a recent radio interview, Mecca brought up the possibility that military recruiters might now start visiting high school gay-straight alliance meetings. Now that the military is open to lesbian and gay recruits, this is certainly a possibility. If so, this will probably occur more at working class and low income schools where the students have fewer and more tenuous opportunities after graduation.