The email sent will contain a link to this article, the article title, and an article excerpt (if available). For security reasons, your IP address will also be included in the sent email.
“War! Good God, ya’ll. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin’!”
So went the Bruce Springsteen pop hit of the 1980s, first produced as an anti-Vietnam War song in 1969. The song echoed popular sentiment. The Vietnam War ended. Then the Cold War ended. Yet military spending remains the government’s number one expenditure. When veterans’ benefits and other past military costs are factored in, half the government’s budget now goes to the military/industrial complex. Protesters have been trying to stop this juggernaut ever since the end of World War II, yet the war machine is more powerful and influential than ever.
Why? The veiled powers pulling the strings no doubt have their own dark agenda, but why has our much-trumpeted system of political democracy not been able to stop them?