Sen. Rand Paul’s expression of opposition to a $1.1 billion U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia — which has been brutally bombing civilian targets in Yemen using U.S.-made weapons for more than a year now — alarmed CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday afternoon.
Blitzer’s concern: That stopping the sale could result in fewer jobs for arms manufacturers.
“So for you this is a moral issue,” he told Paul during the Kentucky Republican’s appearance on CNN. “Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there’s going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That’s secondary from your standpoint?”
Paul stayed on message. “Well not only is it a moral question, its a constitutional question,” Paul said. “Our founding fathers very directly and specifically did not give the president the power to go to war. They gave it to Congress. So Congress needs to step up and this is what I’m doing.”
Watch the exchange:
Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in March 2015, and has since been responsible for the majority of the 10,000 deaths in the war so far. The U.S.-backed bombing coalition has been accused of intentionally targeting civilians, hospitals, factories, markets, schools, and homes. The situation is so bad that the Red Cross has started donating morgue units to Yemeni hospitals.
The war’s incredible humanitarian toll has generated an increasing outcry in the United States. Earlier this month, more than 60 members of Congress signed a letter asking the administration to delay the most recent arms shipment. Ordinarily, under the Arms Export Control Act, Congress has 30 days to block arms sales proposed by the administration — but by announcing the arms sale in August, most of those 30 days fell during Congress’s August recess. That 30-day window expired Thursday night and the White House has not granted the request for extra time.
The Obama administration has sold more weapons to the Saudis than any other administration, pledging more than $115 billion worth of small arms, tanks, helicopters, missiles, and aircraft.
So yes, it’s a legitimate moral issue. What it’s not is a legitimate economic issue.
If you’re worried about jobs, military spending is not where you look. It’s an inefficient way to create jobs, because it has a lower multiplier effect — meaning how much it ripples in the wider economy. One study from 2011 found that $1 billion put into military spending would create approximately 11,200 jobs, but that same amount of money put into education creates 26,700 jobs.
Top photo: CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer moderates a presidential debate on Dec. 15, 2015, in Las Vegas.
I admire Senator Rand Paul for bringing morality against arming the Saudis to kill innocent Yemenis. Yemen is one of the world’s poorest nations. We could take the high moral ground to build Yemen, and not support the bloody aggression against its poor people.
The sad thing about this article is that it ends by pointing out how to allegedly generate more #bullshitjobs.
If it wasn’t for 3 billion non-contributing, mentally and environmentally destructive #bullshitjobs which are wasting our resources and time and which are giving us traffic jams and climate change in return … well … then it might be a good idea to still talk about even more cancerous “growth” and #bullshitjobs.
Thanks for pointing out idiocy #1 and then being part of idiocy #2 yourself …
Would Wolf argue against gun control measures because it might lead to a decrease in gun sales? After all, gun sales increase dramatically after mass shootings.
Conquer and divide…zionist’s love Arabs killing Arabs…israel would love to see every country in the Middle East broken up into a 1000 unofficial mini states so they can create there security ‘buffers’ and eventually create the ‘greater israel’. They need to go away forever.
Just found out Blitzer is German. No wonder he worries more about profits than killing innocent children. There is some similarity with 1939-45. Disgusting guy
is this for real?
Never forget that Saudi Arabi helped the terrorists that brought down the twin towers.
To sell them more weapons and right now – is a slap in the face to those who died and their families – all American should object.
War’s more profitable than any other business, as General Smedley Butler affirmed. As peaceful manufacturing’s been offshored, and that continues apace, the last jobs with good pay and benefits are increasingly in weapons manufacture and worldwide sales. War is now an outsized portion of our economy, and many jobs do depend upon it, dispersed into every congressional district. That the business of war is now “Made in USA” was revealed when the American ambassador told Russian President Putin that the massive
NATO buildup on the Russian border wasn’t aggressive or threatening, merely representative of how many Americans’ jobs depend upon turning out massive amounts of weaponry. The problem is that leaders like Madeleine Albright then ask military commanders like Colin Powell, “What’s the use of having such an enormous military if you don’t use it?” The absurdity may not be lost on us, but foreign countries are likely to look at history and evaluate that a country that brandishes weapons at its borders is planning war, and historically, is going to.
Relax – he’s just asking a question, maybe playing the devil’s advocate. It’s not evident from this exchange that Blitzer actually expresses his own opinions; he is simply asking Rand to weigh in on jobs, although I’d say this was done in a bit lazy way for someone of his caliber. Personally I think we should halt the sale to the Saudis yesterday.
If Wolf had a brain, or conscience, this would be chief among his worries for the American citizenry, taken from the congressional report on the offshoring of white-collar jobs (2003) :
According to Forrester Research, 3.3 million white-collar jobs and
nearly $140 billion in wages will shift from the U.S. to other nations
over the next 12 years. This does not count the number of displaced
Americans resulting from loopholes in our immigration
laws. Increased global trade was supposed to lead to better jobs
and higher standards of living for Americans by opening markets
around the world for U.S. goods and services.
Wolf has stock investments in the MIC and has NO concern about loss of jobs, but loss of “blood money profits” he stands to lose!
GREED HAS NO SHAME!
Wisdom is a heavy burden to a fool!
I would like to make stock investments in the MIC. What should I invest in?
Yes, of course I’m ashamed of my greed.
What’s the libertarian view on this? Shouldn’t private entities be free to make money from violence or anything else?
libertarian is about the power of individuality, not war – quite the opposite actually. Groups lean to wars.
Paul Simon had that “I am a rock, I am an island, and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries” deal for awhile, it’s total bs. No one has ‘individual’ power, without cooperation of at least ‘some’ others, we would all be dead.
Libertarians generally follow the non-aggression principle, which basically means you should never initiate force against another person or group. Self-defense is fine.
What if your country’s already gone and pissed off the whole world?
“So for you this is a moral issue,” he told Paul during the Kentucky Republican’s appearance on CNN. “Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there’s going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That’s secondary from your standpoint?”
—
Sometimes I am left stunned and speechless!?
You ever notice that the ONLY jobs they ever care about saving are in the Military Industrial Complex? Every other job they can ship off to Mexico and China with their NAFTA’s and TPP’s. Then they shrug their shoulders and say “well that’s progress” and they’ll just have to reinvent themselves.
Blitzer appears blissfully unaware how patently evil he is.
ah hah. you are on to it.
the wallstreet zionists – seeing the middle class to be mined and devastated and treating the people as cattle – want to close the corral gates of opportunity and open the gates for armed forces – to move the youth into that pen while polishing off what is left of the elders assets.
They had tried to keep up the health costs to force reverse mtgs to take the properties – so as to deny inheritance to the youth. Obamacare put a kink in that effort. But to conquer the planet they need a really big military – bases everywhere – econ governed by the T3.
Free and Clear is wallstreet’s fear.
War profiteers need not worry about arms sales drying up with an outbreak of peace. Israel is there to save the day.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-israel-idUSKCN11G0R1?il=0
yep.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815
The link I provided originally gave the Syrian account of Israel providing air support to al queda fighters inside Syria against Syrian government forces. It has since been edited to give only the Israeli version. You can’t trust Reuters?
More likely than not the Israelis are grabbing as much territory as they can before the cease fire takes effect.
Extended security buffer zone or land for more settlements?
The US educational system is something of a disgrace, no? All those very low scores on international lists of best math students, who can find Aleppo on a map, etc.
So you could be spending a LOT more on education before any diminishing returns showed up.
So in any discussion of military spending – such a Trump talking about spending even more, which to a foreigner sounds like Kim Kardashian thinking about increasing her spending on clothes and makeup – should just cover the difference.
A billion more spent on the military is a billion not spent on education. Therefore, phrase it as “a billion spent on the military COSTS 15,000 jobs”.
Wolf B is like a cartoon character on Brickleberry or Rick&Morty. Or Family Guy, but on a bad episode.
Many Americans still insist or persist in believing that we have a free press, while getting most of their news from state-controlled television, under the misconception that reporters are meant to serve the public. Reporters are paid employees and serve the media owners, who usually cower when challenged by advertisers or major government figures. Robert Parry reported the first breaking stories about Iran-Contra for Associated Press that were largely ignored by the press and congress, then moving to Newsweek he witnessed a retraction of a true story for political reasons. In ‘Fooling America: A Talk by Robert Parry’ he said, “The people who succeeded and did well were those who didn’t stand up, who didn’t write the big stories, who looked the other way when history was happening in front of them, and went along either consciously or just by cowardice with the deception of the American people.”
Major networks are primarily controlled by giant corporations that are obligated by law, to put the profits of their investors ahead of all other considerations which are often in conflict with the practice of responsible journalism. There were around 50 corporations a couple of decades ago, which was considered monopolistic by many and yet today, these companies have become larger and fewer in number as the biggest ones absorb their rivals. This concentration of ownership and power reduces the diversity of media voices, as news falls into the hands of large conglomerates with holdings in many industries that interferes in news gathering, because of conflicts of interest. Mockingbird ( Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation) was an immense financial undertaking with funds flowing from the CIA largely through the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) founded by Tom Braden with Pat Buchanan of CNN’s Crossfire.
The CIA’s secret activities, covert missions, and connections of control are all done under the pretense and protection of national security with no accountability whatsoever, at least in their minds. Considering the public is held accountable for everything we think, say, and do there is something seriously wrong with this picture. The CIA is the President’s secret army, who have been and continue to be conveniently above the law with unlimited power and authority, to conduct a reign of terror around the globe.
Ralph McGehee was a CIA agent for 25 years, mainly in South-East Asia where he witnessed bombing and napalming of villages, which caused him to examine closely what the CIA was really all about. He has written about Vietnam’s Phoenix Program http://www.vwip.org/articles/m/McGeheeRalph_VietnamsPhoenixProgram.htm and after a long battle with CIA censors, he published the book “Deadly Deceits” in 1983. Ralph has been harassed by the CIA and FBI, involving bodily injury, and his CIABASE website was shut down on Spring of 2000. He copied some reports that can be found at http://serendipity.magnet.ch/cia/ciabase_report_1.htm (and 2.htm), http://serendipity.magnet.ch/cia/death_squads.htm, and http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/Deadly_Deceits.html. He concluded that the CIA is not now nor has it ever been a central intelligence agency but rather the covert action arm of the President’s foreign policy advisors, of which disinformation is a large part of its responsibility and the American people are the primary target of its lies.
Wolf Blitzer is just another reporter who is in the payroll of…maybe CIA or an unknown corporation. The US Free Press are gone for good if it ever existed.
I’m sure this corporate death salesman also objects when someone suggest Russia stop arming Assad because that would cost Russian jobs. Pfff. Infantile nationalist corporate propaganda.
United States of Military Industrial Complex
how sad rand isn’t the r nominee. he seems to have values unlike the wolfman (should have been a radio dj instead of a fake journalist). I cannot begin to comprehend WTF jobs have to do with this. “SO YES IT’S A MORAL ISSUE” bravo mr paul.
I would hope the senator will speakout in favor of opening the presidential debates too.
The MIC and those who make money off of it (which includes everyone who has retirement accounts) would never let someone like Rand Paul (or his father) become President. I’m startled they let him become a Senator, let alone stay one.
Blitzer is telegraphing just that to Rand Paul … and all of us. It was a threat.
two rich nations gang up to bomb the hell out of a desperately poor one. and all because the two are miffed at iran. sweet.
obomber is a war criminal. support for war crimes comes natural to him. and if big biz can profit, all the better.
wolf blitzer is a breathless supporter of all american invasions, occupations, and dronings. he’s a useful idiot. his tone deaf concern for weapons sales, while 10,000 yemenis are dead, with more to come, is to be expected. no matter how repellent his opinion – nor how dimwitted his act – cnn will keep him on.
dumb america needs a dumb voice.
Turn warplanes and tanks into mass transit and high speed trains. The US should go on an immediate “peace footing” and convert just as the manufactuing industry to war did during WWII.
And what was it Ike warned about the Military Industrial Complex?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
Exactly. Every American should be compelled to watch Ike’s farewell speech and think seriously about what has happened since.
Always thought of Wolf as dim, but I had no idea the depth of his convictions towards anything right of center. This is not about jobs or even about protecting citizens. It’s a blind belief system, anchored in ignorance of the details, the historical facts. The ALEC has done exactly what the K-OCH-S wanted it to do, hide the facts from view, and taint them wherever possible. Dumb down the base.
a little history ferya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJETJT2k-Wc
Guillotine time…
15 may 1948
15 april 1865
24 march 1933
22 november 1963
8 june 1967
20 march 2003
T3 to be decided
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw7P0RGZQxQ#t=489.734625
8 minutes
Wolf Blitzer says what? His former employer was AIPAC. Enough said. BDS, and stop funding Israel also.
Which may be why he was trying to belittle the notion of prioritizing morality over selling more arms. After all, if that idea gains traction, someone will point out how immoral it is to sell (and GIVE) arms to an Apartheid regime.
Wolf Blitzer is merely practicing 21st Century American “journalism.” Figure out a way to make Paul look bad, when he questions matters of war. “What, you don’t like the deaths of random civilians in a foreign country no American can point out on a map?? Well sir, that’s because you hate America and hate American jobs.”
My name is Wolf Blitzer. I am a fucking hologram. I am CNN. I am the biggest joke in news.
CNN. One of the N’s stand for News. The other one stands for NOT – Jimmy Dore
A high tech society that used to make all its own mechanical and electrical equipment is now reduced to the production of apparatus for death and destruction. Rather sad isn’t it?
Bingo!
When adopting my nom de plume and conscientiosly rendering it in Hebrew format, I never for a moment supposed I might ever encounter any real-life competition. But I shall gladly cede it to Wolf Blitzer — he has only to formally ask me to do so here in the Comments section of TI.
If the founding fathers gave Congress the power to go to war, why aren’t they using it? I can’t remember the last time that Congress went to war. Mr. Obama should send the Congress to Syria, and not let them return until ISIS is eliminated.
However, I’m glad that Senator Paul is not waiting for Mr. Obama to act, but is enlisting immediately. I hope the remaining senators will be inspired to follow his example.
couldnt have picked an easier question.
1 congress is on strike – everyone knows it
2 barack is chomping at his bit and has a few extra pens
3 Barack needs to pay some big bills after he leaves so he enlisted in the IDF advisory council because part of the money the US gives to israel is going into his paycheck. He will be taking over the strawman sales for hellary. And if the b from hell becomes prezzie, it be smooth sailing for him from the comfort of his home – you know – digital commuting.
meanwhile izzie’s lizzie’s are preparing the way
https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-hits-syria-army-golan-fire-160332806.html
you probably knew this but for those who dont, THE FIX IS IN.
This is the wrong metric. If you pay me $1 billion, you create only one job, but it is a very well paying job. The quality of the job matters.
How about ‘defense’ contractors start building something useful – as in solar panels, window screens, septic tanks, well pumps?
as President, i would order that. If they refused, they would not pass go, not collect $200.
Because the makers of those things have to compete in a level playing field (no ‘national security’ subsidies being exempted from review and countervailing penalties) and the product has to compete with similar products (no buying off the ‘procurement office’ to tailor specs in ways that exclude everyone else’s product without expensive modification).
ah yes… coincides with another depraved expression of insanity..
What was that that the DOJ and f…b…i… said about providing aid and comfort to the enemy?
Voolfie Blitzagggggh !!!
A severely biased Dual US-Israeli Citizen who like Satanyahoo, has wet dreams about killing Arabs…
One hundred and fifteen billion dollars ,that must of caused a lot of suffering .
My favorite homage to War Profiteering is the Lone Gunman pilot and of course Smedley Butler’s classic “War Is A Racket.” If you can find “The Americanization of Emily,” it is also worth watching. As are “War Inc” and “The Lord of War.” You can find Smedley’s pamphlet online in PDF format around the web.
A review of The Lone Gunmen pilot is timely. It originally aired in March of 2001.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjbQ-BDh4PU
There’s plenty of good money to be made by supplying the army with the tools of its trade.
What’s that spell? F.U.C.K.
“because it has a lower multiplier effect”
There is no such thing as multiplier effect.
Bastiat debunked this “multiplier” back in 1850 (the broken window fallacy), roughly a hundred years before it became mainstream in economics by Keynes.
The “multiplier effect” was a stillborn theory.
No, it’s easy to explain:
Say you build a tank. It just basically sits there; you can sell it to someone, but it doesn’t do anything productive, economically (unless you use it to invade another country and steal their resources, which is a war crime under Nuremberg rules).
Say you build a crane, or a computer. You sell it to someone else, and they use it for productive economic activity – cranes can be used to rebuild bridges and buildings, and computers have all kinds of economic uses. That’s where the “multiplier” comes in. Or consider building a road from a city to a farming area: once the road is built, farmers can get their produce to markets and this provided an economic multiplier to the original expenditure.
Military spending has no such multiplier, unless used for criminal purposes.
then the “divider effect”
opposite of the multiplier effect
also puns to the divisiveness of it all
The bigger problem with the analysis is this. If you look at the effect of domestic military spending on the domestic economy, then yes, you are taking money out of the US economy through US taxes and spending it on literally dead-end products. That isn’t what is happening here. In this case, you are taking money out of the Saudi economy and injecting it into the US economy. That probably has a huge multiplier effect, when that money is spent in the US economy.
This problem merely means that this argument shouldn’t be made (better to spend money on roads and bridges). The Saudis aren’t going to buy roads and bridges for us.
The article should have stuck with the analysis that this is an unconstitutional overreach of executive war powers, and a completely immoral one at that. The pictures coming out of Yemen just don’t seem to matter. Seriously, how do the people who do these things not die of shame when they go to church on Sunday?
You’re are mixing consumer goods with means of production. I was referring to the multiplier effect.
The authors are implying that when a government orders a tank, the amount of economic boost made by the contractor’s demands such as, bolts, steel, cast iron, energy, etc. (thus jobs in these segments) will be inferior in comparison to money spent on education (say books, computers, boards, chalk, you name it). This is the concept of aggregated demand made mainstream by Keynes – that government spending can improve economic outcome (through this “multiplier effect”).
But that is only what is seen. However, there is also what is not seen. Every dollar a government spends (either on tanks or education) means a dollar taken from the tax payer, a dollar that will not be spend on elsewhere by this taxpayer’s genuine demands (food, clothing, medicine, real state, investment etc) making the size of these economic segments smaller than it should be.
So at best, there is no multiplier effect by government spending. The government can at best relocate jobs from an economic segment to other. At worst, it can destroy by taking jobs from genuine demands to whims and musings not needed jobs.
Blitzer doesn’t care at all about domestic jobs when it comes to NAFTA and TPP:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1607/28/wolf.02.html
There, Blitzer asks candidates if they support NAFTA and TPP without mentioning their effects on jobs. He never seems to have raised the issue of trade deals like NAFTA and TPP that result in U.S. manufacturing jobs being shipped abroad; nor does he mention that defense contractors have moved much of their production overseas:
So arms sales to Saudi Arabia by U.S. military contractors will help create jobs in China. . . but this is good for Wall Street, which reaps higher dividends since military contractors can pay much less for Chinese labor. And that, not jobs, is what it’s all about.
You fail to comprehend. We need jobs in the US, so people can make money shipping them overseas. Any job will do.* If we run out of jobs, the jig is up. And Wolf’s out of a job.
*[PAULINE:
…We can narrow this list of job options down to…babysitter and…bramble picker! ]
http://www.leagueofgentlemen.co.uk/newepisodelists1ep1.shtml
Wolf Blitzer is a pretty decent fellow by any standard, and I am sure he won’t squeal like a decapitated pig when we throw him over the wall. It’s not that we want to chuck him, but I am sure he will enjoy the company of latinas when he will end up going. It’s thanks to people like him and Hillary that I sometimes say I am Canadian.
When I were a lad, news articles weren’t about other news articles or the non-events that produced them, they were about news. Plenty of that going on.
Blitzer’s elderly appearance is so incongruous with his manner – so much like a frightened little boy believing everything his overbearing parents say.
He belongs to the territory south of the wall. We will get him there soon along with his whole channel.
No tears being cried here…for defense contractors or military spending. I just heard on PBS Newshour (yes I know they’re a forum for propaganda, which makes the following all the more alarming) that WE have spent 6.5 BILLION dollars alone just to train the Afghanistan Army. Wrap your brain around that number and think about what we could be doing with that chunk of change here at home. And the war criminals Rummy/Cheney claimed it would “only” take 2 Billion for the entire Iraq war.
Point being, as it relates to arming Saudi Arabia, is that propping up defense contractors and military spending results in nothing but a ce$$pool of endless war around the glove with the only people “benefitting” from such spending being the contractors and military machine.
by my estimate, the wallstreet warfickers who also rob America for a living, are printing IOU’s to pay the mils bills. just printing it as they go. then putting on our bill so we “mainstreet morons” can work to pay that bill – interest only.
BANKRUPT WALLSTREET! They really need a lesson in knowing who should run the country.
Blitzer can’t possibly be that morally obtuse, can he?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJETJT2k-Wc
No. He’s perfectly cognizant of advocating mass murder for profit.
Mr. Blitzer is simply a talking head. A vapid, teleprompter-reading talking head who does what he’s told.
Hallelujah!!! Defense contractors lose work. Their talents would be much better utilized rebuilding American Infrastructure.
Wolf Blitzer is a Mossad plant in the American journalist community.
The fact that CNN still employs him shows that they are a tool of Israel.
Paul stayed on message. “Well not only is it a moral question, its a constitutional question,” Paul said. “Our founding fathers very directly and specifically did not give the president the power to go to war. They gave it to Congress. So Congress needs to step up and this is what I’m doing.”
May not like all his ideas but Rand Paul is tap dead center on this point.
“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!” Sorry Hillary, not buying it. You will have to find another way to please you military industrial buddies and you war mongering pals. We won’t allow you to kill for the oil industry either. It’s over. Get used to it.
Wolf Blitzer is a brainwashed tool of the oligarchy. His unwillingness to acknowledge that our weapons trade is IMMORAL and UNETHICAL and is, in fact, part of the moral decay of our society, is a degree of willful ignorance I find completely unacceptable. The US has two main exports, weapons and propaganda. Blitzer is himself part of the propaganda machine so his willful ignorance is entirely self serving. Why anyone bothers to listen to anything this corrupt person has to say, is beyond me.
he goes waaaaay back.
cant help himself.
it’s the same how his family does back home to Palestinians to steal the land.
he figures by helping warrify Americans to bankrupt the country, they can take that too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJETJT2k-Wc
blitzer is a typical wallstreet zion pig.
Wolf Blitzer is a brainwashed tool of the oligarchy. His unwillingness to acknowledge that our weapons trade is IMMORAL and UNETHICAL and is, in fact, part of the moral decay of our society, is a degree of willful ignorance I find completely unacceptable. The US has two main exports, weapons and propaganda. Blitzer is himself part of the propaganda machine so his willful ignorance is entirely self serving. Why anyone bothers to listen to anything this corrupt asshole has to say, is beyond me.
He’s that place where the poop comes out.
You see, you dont have to be a nazi to commit genocide for fun and profits. You can be an Ashkenazi and do the same thing. Feeding people, housing them, what for. What does the world really need with all “these other people types” anyway. Just mouths to feed – there’s no real money in that. Billions of people – who needs em when we can turn the planet into one giant Ditney luxury resort with a few – just a few – lessers and robots who wont give us a problem. And with “non racist” Hellary allowing the way for this legal genocide (hitler wasnt a racist either, right?), hey, why not.
Finkelstein vs Blitzer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJETJT2k-Wc
There is some material out there showing that the wolf blitzers were pulling Hitler’s strings. Then there is the YINON PLAN.
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties
by Oded Yinon
This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14–Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.
Blitzer… Just another Globalist, Neocon NWO warmonger.
“So for you this is a moral issue,” he told Paul during the Kentucky Republican’s appearance on CNN. “Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. ”
That’s the most common leverage tactic every corp. uses when negotiating with hesitant policy makers. If I had a dollar for everytime I’ve heard the “jobs at stake” line I’d be, well, 75-80 dollars richer lol!
Wolf Blitzer isn’t a reporter – he circulates disinformation to idiotic American audiences. As a tool of the Zionist political establishment he should be thrown to the dogs. Where’s Kim Jong-Un when you need him!?
Wolf is just one reason I refuse to watch MSM.
I guess, the British parliament is equally concerned about “loss of jobs”!! Otherwise, what is their excuse??
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/09/yemenis-die-uk-arms-saudi-arabia
“Blitzer’s concern: That stopping the sale could result in fewer jobs for arms manufacturers.”
Except he also talked about revenue, didn’t he? He didn’t go on to mention profits and dividends, but that’s the real concern that’s pushing continued arms sales to the Saudis.
Consider the top U.S. military contractors, in order by sales (c.2010)
Lockheed Martin
Boeing
Northrop Grumann
General Dynamics
Raytheon
L-3 Communications
United Technologies
SAIC
Oshkosh
Computer Sciences Corp
Honeywell
General Electric
Pratt & Whitney
ITT Exelis
KBR
URS
ATK
Rockwell Collins
Textron
Hewlett-Packard
ManTech
Navistar Defense
Dyncorp International
Goodrich
CACI International
Is Wolf Blitzer really concerned about jobs, or is he talking about revenue, profits, and dividends? He is a CNN employee, which is owned by Time Warner (TWX). TWX major holders include Vanguard, MFS Co., Dodge & Cox, State Street, JP Morgan, etc. Lockheed Martin (LMT) holders include State Street, Capital World Investors, Vanguard Group, Wellington, Blackrock, etc. Northrop Grumann (NOC) major holders include State Street, Vanguard Group, MFS Co., Capital World, JP Morgan, Blackrock, etc.
Lockheed is a $73 billion company; Northrop a $43 billion company, Time Warner a $60 billion company. And Obama, he’s the Salesman-in-Chief, President Willie Loman in action, coming up with $115 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia alone.
This is the point, isn’t it? You need a study of the net effect on the bottom line of the defense contractors share price and dividend yield over the past 8 years of Saudi arms sales. Of course, most of this money goes into the pockets of the top 1% of the U.S. population who have large Wall Street investments; some does trickle down into retirement pension funds and 401Ks, and some goes to manufacturing jobs in the United States. What would be the effect on this cash flow of a ban on arms sales to the Saudis? Where’s the study?
Only talking about jobs ignores what the arms deals are really about; and if you think Wall Street gives a damn about U.S. domestic jobs, you might want to ask them why they’ve shipped so many U.S. manufacturing jobs to low-wage sweatshop zones like Mexico, China, India, Bangladesh, etc.
And guess what? It’s not just automobiles and electronics and clothing and pharmaceuticals, A lot of military manufacturing has ALSO been outsourced to countries like China!
http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/americas-military-is-supplied-by-china
Isn’t it obvious that Saudi arms deals are all about Wall Steet profit margins? That’s the real driving force behind these arms sales. Wolf Blitzer must know this; but Wolf Blitzer is not a journalist, he’s a PR monkey, as are the vast majority of his corporate media brethen. He knows that he’s supposed to talk about the jobs, not the dividends and profit margins.
Saudi trade recycles the petro-dollar. It’s not “an” economic issue- it’s THE economic issue. It’s where the political abstraction of American Empire meets the hard concrete.
https://medium.com/@matthewstoller/the-solution-to-isis-is-the-first-amendment-95fc2c94f52e#.s0k1e9w7n
A good analogy of the petro-dollar boost to the U.S. economy today is the slave-dollar boost to the U.S. economy up through 1862 (when the international slave trade was finally ended). Prior to that, the U.S. actively participated in the slave trade (even though there was a ban on importing slaves to the U.S. from 1806 onwards), because U.S. ships would carry raw commodities to Europe, manufactured goods to Africa, and slaves to Brazil and Cuba. Slave ships were built in Northern U.S. shipyards up through 1862, and revenue from this ‘triangular trade’ flowed into the U.S. – even though the slaves never did.
Many people misunderstand the Saudi oil issue – that oil is not needed in the United States, but the cash flow from the trade gets directed to Wall Street via their holdings in Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, Occidental, Conoco, etc. Arms sales and engineering contracts also direct Saudi cash to U.S. banks – and in exchange, the U.S. provides military support to the Saudi dictatorship, which would otherwise have been replaced by a parliamentary democracy system decades ago. The latest threat the Saudis faced was the populist Arab Spring pro-democracy movement, which Obama and Clinton worked hard to disrupt and destroy, on behalf of their brutal dictator buddies.
As far as petrodollars, here’s an interesting article on the petroeuro and also on why reserve currency may not be a big issue in the future:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/06/25/2132956/hello-world-im-the-petroeuro/
The U.S. has spent the past few decades, since the end of the Cold War, trying to use military power to secure economic advantages around the world, basically threatening any country that doesn’t sign U.S.-favorable trade deals with economic disruption, covert regime change, or military attack (the Clinton – Bush – Obama era) – but this is not a very healthy long-term strategy, particularly when you look at how the domestic economy has been gutted by offshoring of manufacturing.
Yep, there’s a gaping epistemological hole on how the sausage is made, and it’s all the more glaring in left circles ostensibly fighting imperialism.
Here’s Eisenhower in ’57.
US promoted Wahhabism to countervail Arab socialism. And now uses Wahhabism as pretext for war eternal.
“$1 billion put into military spending would create approximately 11,200 jobs, but that same amount of money put into education creates 26,700 jobs.”
That’s because teachers are paid less and they require less expensive equipment?
Anyways, the issue here is military SALES to a foreign country that (surprise?) is using our hardware to massacre people. The issue is not US military spending so, if you are trying to make a ‘practical’ point, you’re not. You can’t export teachers to Saudi Arabia, by the way. Like Mr. Paul said, this is a moral and constitutional issue so don’t fall into Wolfie’s trap because you don’t have to.
What?
Huh?
Your argument is less than clear.
The authors’ calculations would make sense from a Saudi point of view. When Saudi buys $1 billion worth of stuff that goes boom from us it is them, not us who ‘put’ $1 billion in the military. ‘We’ can still spend $1 billion on education if we feel like it.
And, again, discussing the selling of tools of genocide in terms of ‘jobs’ is absurd.
It seems you didn’t understand their argument. Try rereading the entire pertinent paragraph:
I don’t really watch Wolf Blitzer so I’m not aware of the greater context, but it came across to me like he was just pointing out that curtailing weapons deals to Saudi Arabia may result in a loss of job to defense contractors. Certainly it’s a viewpoint that some would have (however inane). A good interviewer gives that person an opportunity to respond to the voices of criticism, regardless of whether they identify with those voices or not. He didn’t appear to detail his own personal opinion on the matter.
We are now going to sue the Saudis and make them paupers, so the defense contractors better collect all their account receivables and move it to their onshore accounts – and pay up their taxes if they expect us to protect their interest in any way.
Mr Obama has told the Saudis he is going to veto the bill, but poor chat won’t even get that privilege due to the nasty folks in our congress, damn them. The bill was passed veto-proof, much to Obama’s frustration. This coming Eid is going to be very inauspicious for the Islamic jihadists, moderate or otherwise. Alahu Akbars!
I have to admit that Mr Obama is geometrically congruent to the structural non-linearity of his chosen successor that is colorfully described by Donald Trump as being “Crook’d”.
It is absolutely disgusting that the UK Tory Government is continuing to allow arm sales to Saudi Arabia with the huge evidence that the arms are being used in clear breach of International Humanitarian Laws.The despot Saudi regime is continuing to commit its war crimes in Yemen, and essentially the UK Government is sponsoring these acts of state terrorism, and should be held accountable for the war crimes committed.This is completely unacceptable, inexcusable, and disgraceful.
I would like to say to Blitzer, “Well, gee, Wolf, that’d be the sh**s, wouldn’t it. That is the most pathetic excuse for anything I’ve ever heard. Some people have to work really hard when they get up mornings to muster any smarts at all and Wolf failed this morning.
Yes, indeed, we have built our society upon a humongous make-work-by government- (taxpayer) debt policy to sustain our military-industrial complex, comprised of government-employed people and those working in jobs provided by government contracts to narrowly-owned large armament corporations, which are economically and politically powerful, and the smaller sub-contractors they contract with, who also are narrowly owned as well as employing people.
We are sadly steeped in an economic system that at its core is military-industrial-founded.
We need to reform the system to propel PRODUCING actual products and services that people need and want for their daily lives, that are not related to military-industrial subsidies and that EVERY child, woman and man can become an OWNER of the corporations producing these needed products and services, using INSURED, INTEREST-FREE capital credit, repayable out of the FUTURE earnings in the investments to build a FUTURE economy that can produce general affluence for EVERY citizen.
For solutions see the Agenda of The JUST Third Way Movement (not the Third Way) at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797, http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-basic-principles-of-economic-and-social-justice-by-norman-g-kurland/, http://www.cesj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/jtw-graphicoverview-2013.pdf and http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-a-new-vision-for-providing-hope-justice-and-economic-empowerment/.
Support Monetary Justice at http://capitalhomestead.org/page/monetary-justice.
Support the Capital Homestead Act (aka Economic Democracy Act) at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/, http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/, http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ch-vehicles/.
and so shall it be as it is written
Wolf Blitzer is the most perfectly named low life war loving power crazy moron in the history of the media. Named to peddle imperialism, war, and all of the horrors associated with them. The man has no shame.
Gary Johnson did not know WHAT is ALEPPO so it would not surprise me if Wolf Blitzer does not know what SANA is and what Saudi Arabia has done to it!!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2015/jun/12/old-town-of-sanaa-after-airstrikes-and-before-in-pictures
Sadly, ignorance of the media can never be overestimated.
( cont )
cont…
SANA
Just in case the gentleman decides to read this post and comments…
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/385
It is not ignorance! It is willful misdirection, deceit and propaganda from MSM that promotes the agenda of the oligarchs who own it .
Hell, I thought Wolf Blitzer was dead. (I don’t have cable or dish or anything; turned it all off in 2011 and my psyche is better for it.)
Anyway there should be TERM LIMITS on these TV ANDROID NEWS READERS and PROPAGANDA PURVEYORS without an atom of humanity, empathy or conscience. I suggest THREE YEARS NATIONAL, MAX. Then back to local forever. Or go sell shoes.
He is. AIPAC hired Disney and Google to replace him with Animatronic Wolf, controlled by a satellite link to the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s hasbara department.
That made me giggle.
Yes…let us not give up slavery because it will put slave-catchers out of work.
It’s strongly evident that corporate media supports those who should be on welfare…Blitzer, Don Lemon…and that’s just at CNN.
WBlitzer: where war you when PresReagan ‘opened China’ so all OTHER jobs could go there and not respecting AGreenspan wisdom that ‘the american worker NEEDS JOB-INSECURITY?
Wolf Blitzer is one of the more repugnant types of arch-Zionist, a former AIPAC hack. Zionism is well-known for destroying the Jewish soul, and Blitzer’s is dead and decayed.
Of course the moron thinks the issue here is economics; he’s indoctrinated not to care if brown Muslims die. Killing brown Muslims is a good thing! But he’s also a proud Merkin, and cares about the economy!
And did I mention that Blitzer is a moron? I mean, like in a clinical sense. If you don’t believe me treat yourself and watch this clip of his appearance on Jeopardy! (Hell, treat yourself even if you do believe me.)
I saw Anderson Cooper on Jeopardy the other day. I was almost surprised by how very little he knew…along with Laura Logan and Michael Steele. These are the ‘informers’ of the public.
Cooper has evinced some hints of intelligence, really he has. I saw him interviewing national intel officials and clearly knowing what the issues were and what he was talking about. It was really somewhat shocking.
Preparing for an interview (of limited subject) and showcasing your ignorance of general knowledge are two very different things. By Jeopardy standards, Cooper has the brain of Ryan Lochte.
Then again, now that I think about it, Cooper interned for the CIA in the 80s immediately before deciding to be a journalist. Perhaps that could explain his feigning ignorance while evincing (extensive?) knowledge of national intelligence. Perhaps he’s a ‘Mockingbird’…
No, it was that he had a real handle on the Snowden revelations, what they meant, didn’t mean, and who had made what critiques when. I believe he corrected Jeffrey Toobin during that asshat’s spewing.
It really surprised me how much Anderson knew about not just the documents, but the history of the various debates about them. With Cooper, it seems he often does truly inane interviews and stories, but is capable, when he decides to do it, of presenting something intelligent.
All of which seems to lend credence to my latter assessment.
If only Sen. Paul made so much sense all the time!
IS that really a “concern”, or is it just the only question he and his handlers could come up with? We should underestimate neither stupidity nor evil at CNN.
But this is hard to argue with: Spend that $115 billion here in the US on things people can use and you make the US a better place as well as saving lives in the ME.
“Won’t somebody PLEEEAZZZE think of the war profiteers?!?!?”
I wouldn’t have added the last paragraph. The “multiplier effect” is nonsense anyway. Every dollar spent on the military is a dollar removed from private spending. Every job “created” means another job destroyed. This is a moral issue, straight up.
Of course it is real, it is just not so obvious when it happens and when it does not
It never happens, ever, when government spending is involved (be it military or bridges or education or anything else).
Agreeing with JW, the author has fallen into the same trap by including the last paragraph. Every policy decision in the USA must be sold on the basis of its economic impact. Capitalism is the only morality that gets any traction, because humanity is a commodity; humanity is a raw material, a disposable resource.
So, Wolf Blitzer is echoing another pseudo-famous quote,
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
This then leads to the question,
what are morals?
Morals are the commonly accepted mores of a society.
If the mores of the faking U$A are accepted by the majority of
voters as primarily based upon the economy,
then both Blitzer and Rand Paul (a very economically named person)
are half-correct (sic).
There cannot be a separation of morality from economics in a
society which clearly, blatantly put personal economics above
any words about equal justice
the way the voters in the faking U$A consistently do
by electing democrat and republican corporate agents as
their voices in the halls of power.
I would love to know and believe that the voters of
the faking U$A really wanted economics to serve a higher
ethical standard, but their actions repeatedly and overwhelmingly
indicate that is a type of “purist” behavior which they
disdain.
Thanks, Zaid & Alex.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch commercial television for a long time, so I would miss much of this were it not for coverage such as yours.
This one is just priceless — pricelessly obscene.
I don’t know why I still pay for cable. In all honesty, the only time I’ve had cable on in the last year has been when new episodes of The Walking Dead are airing.
Giving up cable “news” is seriously good for one’s health. I get all my news online. One way I use Twitter is to follow people known for linking to valuable articles, and I do make sure not to read only those smarter folk who agree with me. (There are some smart folk who do not agree with me!)
For entertainment, it’s Netflix all the way, baby! (And novels, lottsa novels.)
Fuck cable. I should get rid of it. It’s just that delight I take in each TWD new episode that’s stopping me. I love that show.
We finally did get rid of cable when we realized that we were paying exorbitant fees for, literally, hundreds of channels we never watched.
Netflix, Acorn (if you like British stuff) and Blu-ray/DVD are more — much more — than adequate for entertainment.
As you say, the online choices for news are so far beyond anything offered on cable that they are in a different dimension.
And the walls are lined with overflowing bookcases, so. . . it’s all good.
It’s hard for me to find shows that are funny because most “humor” is asinine. Yet it’s good for me to do the occasional comedy to get my head out of the political miasma.
To that end, I just discovered “Shameless” on Netlfix, all six seasons originally airing on Showtime. William H. Macy is virtually always awesome, and he is in this. It’s tacky in somewhat the same way Married With Children was (but more so, cuz Showtime), but smartly done. It cracks me up.
Just looked it up and will check it out.
William H. Macy is a favorite.
Hey Mona…check out “Stranger Things” on Netflix. My son and all his fellow Mellennials are raving about it!
Already watched it! It’s awesome, and I have several times ranted at my 37-yr-old son that he’d love it, too. (He just has a time problem.)Stand By Me was one of his fave movies.
I was also worried about my TWD, as well as American Horror Story and Fear the Walking Dead, but I found AMC online where you can watch TWD and Fear the next day after airing. About to phone Bell and cancel my satellite subscription as it’s 300 channels of pure crap with commercials (also pure crap). MSM news is only to be watched when you need a laugh….
or you need to watch/hear someone bald faced lie to you.
Tara, now you’ve got me teetering closer to doing what I know I should do. It’s just dumb for me to keep paying for cable.
What a surprise…Wolf FUCKING Blitzer attempting to divert the conversation from a moral dilemma to a fallacious assertion that this would somehow have a negative impact on the economy for America. Blitzer is a perfect example of your common media shill; why talk about the US arming brutal military regimes in the Middle East when we can discuss useless talking points?
As always, good reporting from Zaid and Alex. You both deserve more recognition than Mackey on TI.
You cannot get more Orwellian. “We need war to be prospers, otherwise you want to be peacefully but poor. ”
These pundits need to be taken of the air for disseminating such propaganda!
Worried about the killing machine? All the calls to bring the troops home ?.?
N.A.F.T.A. and the jobs that are gone so we could have billionaires?.? Foreclosures?? Zombie Housing ?? Blocked Legislation – even that of the appointment of a new JUSTICE –
We no longer manufacture anything ( almost) We assemble automobiles BUT the tool and die makers aren’t ours??
WE are one of the world’s largest arms dealers / manufacturers…
Bring the troops home to NO Jobs……NO Housing….No Medical (V.A.) BUT
Don’t worry the FED is still pumping up Wall Street to ensure the derivatives don’t hit the fan … ha ha ha – and no place to park
How did the pentagon lose 6 trillion dollars??
The perpetual war(s)… war on drugs after the C.I.A. under the Reagan/Bush administration started smuggling drugs into the U.S.A. ( was there really a picture of George and Jeb meeting a black ops plane?) War OF terror….. Spying on our citizens and everyone else ( KGB the good old days)
So we had WWII – Korea – Viet Nam – Iran – Iraq#! – Panama – Iraq#2 – now Syria…Libya… Yemen…. and I really can not name the rest or their order…
but to worry about manufacturing weapons??
The United States of America is a nation of PEACE
http://www.globalresearch.ca/list-of-countries-the-usa-has-bombed-since-the-end-of-world-war-ii/24626
THANK YOU – – –