“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion…but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
~ Samuel P. Huntington
There have been several material omissions or “stumbles” in the President’s first 70 days in office. Here are the most important opportunities to improve performance in his first year in office.
1. The National Security State Needs Re-Imagination and Reinvention
The National Security State has been growing in an out-of-control, uneconomic basis since President Eisenhower first warned us and President Kennedy died trying to do something about it. The growth curve accelerated following the success of the Kennedy assassination and the subsequent cover-up until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Suddenly, America expected a peace dividend.
Instead, we got 9-11 and an open checkbook for the national security state. Using an invisible, abstract enemy, a massive war was created that could extend indefinitely on a global basis with occasional justification provided by financing small terrorist groups and false flag operations.
How much money has been spent? We don’t really know.
First, the Department of Defense, the Congressional appropriations committees, and the executive branch have ignored all provisions of the Constitution and the laws related to financial management. The DOD books have not been audited for over 20 years since a legal requirement was instituted to do so in the early 1990s. DOD and DOD Inspector General reports indicate that balancing their books required over $11 trillion in “undocumentable adjustments” including $6.5 trillion of “undocumentable adjustments” in 2015 alone.
The Trump administration’s new budget blueprint recognizes our $20 trillion in debt. However, it does not recognize the assets purchased with the $11 trillion in “undocumentable adjustments,” let alone how we will assert jurisdiction and ownership over those assets.
When we re-engineer the budget, I want all the money on the table.
Certainly, much of that money has already been spent. Jack Ma at Davos this year pointed out that the United States has spent $14 trillion on wars during the last 30 years. However, many reports indicate that despite all the money spent, the US armed services have not been properly maintained. They are significantly stretched around the world as they attempt to build out a unipolar empire. In part, this is the result of becoming overextended in wars in the Middle East since the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.
Contributing to this problem is the fact that the military expense and debt is reflected in US financial statements. The government contracts, natural resources, and businesses acquired through war or the threat of war are often booked on private and corporate financial statements, including offshore entities. US taxpayers fund the expense and the debt and lose their lives fighting the wars – but they do not own the resulting assets.
Finally, the budget fails to provide detail on the government contracting budget, arguably the most out-of-control portion of the national security state. The US government has become increasingly dependent on private companies and banks for multiple operations, including those associated with missing money. This includes bank accounts, securities servicing, and payment and information systems. These “material weaknesses” should be addressed immediately and financially sensitive operations should be returned to the control of the civil service.
In summary, there are serious structural imbalances and fundamental failures in the federal budget and finances. These issues must be addressed if we are going to balance the US budget:
- Redefining the role of the US and the US military and re-engineering the budget accordingly;
- Bringing transparency to the “black budget;”
- Identifying where the missing $11 trillion went and asserting jurisdiction over the related assets;
- Returning both information sovereignty and financial sovereignty to the core functions of the US government.
The President has been essentially silent on these issues since taking office. Presumably, the new Secretary of Defense is working on plans that would transform the current budget blueprint into something addressing a redefined role for the US military in the world. So far, we have experienced the opposite: the President has reversed his position on NATO without firm commitments from all of the members to fund their share. The President’s pro-Israeli stance, events in Syria in early April, and dismissal of Steve Bannon from the National Security Council meetings are ominous signs that we may be returning to the Neocon agenda.
The result of progressive denial regarding this DOD budget “800-pound gorilla” is a proposal for a significant increase in defense appropriations in the Budget Blueprint.
Given a variety of budgetary pressures, simply ignoring the problems and appropriating more money will not work. President Trump and General Mattis need to prepare a Defense budget based on a practical vision for our future rather than “kick the can.”
2. Stop the Con-Con
There is an effort underway to have the states call for a Constitutional Convention. The specifics were covered in detail in an excellent interview on the Solari Report with constitutional scholar and attorney Edwin Vieira: American Suicide: Proposals for Constitutional Amendments & Convention.
Any such process can be hijacked. If approved, the chances are 99.9% that it will be hijacked. At which point you can kiss the US Constitution goodbye.
This is how the National Security State keeps draining the general economy with no accountability – hence this issue is intimately connected with the reinvention of the National Security State.
To my knowledge, President Trump and his team have made no effort to stop this lobbying of the states or to warn the general population.
If the President wants to make America great again, the destruction of the US Constitution will produce the opposite result.
President Trump needs to weigh in on this issue immediately.
Yes, I know that the President has been silent on other major issues such as geoengineering. Let’s hope that he is digging in to get the facts on this and many others.
3. Managing The Executive Branch, Consensus & Privatization
The Presidency of the United States is a brutal job.
The President is responsible for performance but lacks the authorities and powers needed to achieve performance. Most of the information necessary to build consensus is secret or obfuscated. He must operate in an environment where many politicians and special interests seek power by creating obstacles and various forms of political “toll booths.” It is the ultimate in herding cats.
The recent effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is a perfect example.
The US health care system spends the most money per person in the world – over $9,000 annually. That is 50% more than Switzerland, one of richest countries in the world, which is second in money spent per person.
The general population and health care industry are physically and financially dependent on uneconomic behavior.
We have a general population that suffers from numerous health problems. Some of these are caused by:
- Poor habits and food addictions;
- A food system debased by GMOs and industrial agriculture;
- Heavy metals and other toxic substances from geoengineering spraying;
- Toxicity from vaccines and EMF radiation.
Add to this numerous uneconomic industry conditions:
- A pharmaceutical industry that is not subject to market forces;
- Involvement of the private insurance industry – we need health care, not insurance! It adds an unnecessary layer of expense;
- Highly complex government regulation combined with decades of judicial decisions and enforcement incentivized with civil and criminal money penalties.
Whether bad habits, uneconomic practices, or environmental pollution, we now have an entire ecosystem of business and citizens who need to change.
The President and the Congress do not have the power to make the US population change. For many years, they have had the power to throw money and promises at this problem. However, now that the debt growth model is over, they can no longer do this.
The President arrived in Washington still naïve about the challenges of bringing about real change. That is why his efforts to burst fake news and to engage in real issues is potentially so important – he shows real potential at doing this. If we are going to face and solve the challenges before us (such as health care) we must face all the issues and sort out how to optimize our limited resources.
The President is going to have to find a way to engage with the American people on the important issues. Otherwise, he will fall into the trap of promoting actions that corporate interests will help him push through. If this happens, he will not make America great again. Rather, he will find himself serving up tax reform, regulatory relief, and infrastructure privatization in a manner that serves corporations rather than smaller enterprises. In this scenario, what remains of America will disappear in a corporate liquidation sale.
The stress involved in keeping things moving in a positive direction and enduring the pressures of the “swamp” is tremendous. It means that he must find a way to pay attention to the details. For example, the immigration order in the first month had a chance to succeed if he had given General Kelly and an experienced Homeland Security legal and operations team a chance to make sure that it was properly pre-engineered. In this regard, consider the following:
- Create “war team” capacity. Established Washington interests intend to make life difficult. The President needs a team that is dedicated to dealing with witch hunts and fake news so that his core team and Cabinet can remain focused on MAGA and the business of governing. He also needs to have the capacity to take care of the “Scorpions” and to do so quietly.
- The President needs to shelve his inner petty streak. He is the President now. Griping about unfairness, the double-binds and swamp critters often wastes precious political capital. It’s fine to attack or criticize if it gets something done, but venting to feel good usually squanders valuable airtime.
One of the critical risks is that without a wider consensus, the only thing that can get approved in the Washington sausage factory of democracy are changes that benefit large corporations and the wealthy, as they have the clout to move legislation through Congress. The result: if it is good for billionairies, it moves through Congress like a hot knife through butter.
Immediately after the election, I published my article, The Productivity Backlash and the conclusion stands today:
So what happens now? Will President-elect Trump be able to lead the United States towards lasting change?
Rejecting the Clintons and the Neocons is the first step. Once inaugurated, however, President Trump and Vice President Pence will assume leadership of a complex machinery that is deeply dependent on harvesting global and domestic subsidies. Turning that machine around is easier said than done. Yes, the productive people want change. However, that change will require a broad-based commitment to shift the fundamental dependency of the US establishment and general population away from the “central banking-warfare model.” The richly subsidized, in particular, are in no hurry to convert to becoming fundamentally productive. Do we see Hillary Clinton embracing the opportunity to learn how to drive her own car or to clean her multiple homes? In my experience, there is no one meaner than the richly privileged when they are suddenly required to earn their keep.
This is what Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson said regarding the challenge that lies before all of us:
“The two candidates that we have just had offered to us in this election, both of them made comments and one of them had a profession that dictated this…that they were going to continue to play by that playbook. Now one wonders what one of them is going to do because he [Trump] is bouncing all over the place. Is he going to rewrite the playbook? Is he going to play by the playbook? Is he going to throw it out the door? What’s going to happen?”
“That uncertainty certainly unnerved the markets initially, they recovered today. And they will continue to recover as long as he remains somewhat conciliatory and doesn’t look like he is going to throw the playbook out. Just imagine if he suddenly decided that he would and it might be beneficial to the country that he did.”
“Then you see what I am talking about now because the markets will go all over the place again. Because the markets are part of this state. The markets are part of waging war. They are part of the warfare state. Our entire financial system now is geared to this warfare state. It has an umbilical cord extending from it.”
“That’s how it survives. That’s how it makes a lot of its profits…directly or indirectly.”
“Not for nothing was HSBC found out for laundering drugs. You know where a lot of those drugs were coming from?…Afghanistan. This is a vicious many-headed animal that we have allowed to grow up – as Eisenhower predicted – and if we are not careful it is going to eat all of our lunches before it is through with us.”
The task before the new administration is much greater than most people appreciate. Since the election, millions of dollars have flowed to engineer protests and a vindictive corporate media are doing their best to sabotage the transition. The political establishment is trying to build political toll booths at every turn. This change will not be decided by an election. This is trench warfare, involving all of us.
What can we do? Peggy Noonan addressed it in her latest column in the WSJ, “What Comes After the Uprising?” She closed with some exceptionally sound advice:
“The next president needs you. This is our country. Help him.”
Give thanks that Hillary Clinton is not going to be the President of the United States. As Winston Churchill once said, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” We have missed a very big bullet – one that could have destroyed America. Then go to work, each in our own way. If the productive want a country where we are once again free to be productive, if we want America to be great again, it is going to take all of us pulling in that direction every day for the next four years.
Additional Stumbles:
- Nominating a jurist for the Supreme Court who helped the Bush administration invent a spurious legal justification for torture.
- Getting switch-hit by the Republican House members after Paul Ryan thought he had the votes – a lesson in the power of “Mr. Global” and his control files.
- The Flynn resignation would not have occurred in a well-managed administration. The President needs to have the right “lieutenants” – and he must protect them.
- Trump does not have an effective “War Room” team – or does he? Is there a covert War Room team? Was David Brock’s heart attack the work of a covert team working indirectly for the President?
- Oligarchy: Is the Trump team lost in a “rich” bubble? Will they keep their contracts with “the people” or self-identify with the rich and the opportunity for wealth which they now control?
- The danger of piratization. How will Cohn / Mnuchin and other Goldman Sachs alumni operate?
- Alpha-male ego contests make Trump look un-presidential and waste political capital.