Statement before Judge Nash, 12 April 2012

Hearing for disruption of Super Committee charge

I joined the U.S. Navy in 1980 and served on active duty for the next 20 years relatively ignorant of the vastness of the U.S. military machine and its deep-seated entrenchment with our government and economy.  I had little understanding of the "military-industrial complex' that President Eisenhower warned us about 50 years ago, and I certainly didn't know what Major General Smedley Butler meant when he said that "War is a racket." 

Now I am beginning to understand the enormity of the power that the U.S. military machine holds.  Capitalism is supposed to be an economic system"not a foreign policy--but war making has become very profitable.  Profit means money and it is money that controls the power in our government.  It doesn't matter to the government that wars are immoral, illegal or ineffective.  Government policies are shaped by the will of the corporate interests who have direct, immediate and in some cases, almost exclusive access to them.  

And so it was in the case of the Super Committee--a hand-selected committee of 12 senators and representatives who were given extra-ordinary (some say extra-Constitutional) powers, met in secret, and solicited testimony from not one citizen .  My own Congressman did not have access to this committee, but over 250 lobbyists did.  I have come to understand what millions of Americans already know--that the will of the people is of little concern to those in power.  We can demonstrate and petition and write letters until we are blue in the face, but those actions can't compete with the power of the money coming from the lobbyists and corporate interests.