Kudos to the 1941 W.C Fields comedy film “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break” for the inspiration. Well, this certainly does fit with what is transpiring now in our Amerikan Empire. This writer lives in an area I have always labeled as Death Valley USA, this Daytona Beach area. For the most part it is a place of low political and cultural sophistication. As with most areas of low repute there are lots of us who are ‘ exceptions to this rule’.
Yet, so many of those who live here or visit here are what old W. C. would call suckers. The month of February is NASCAR month in Daytona. We have that infamous Daytona 500 race that draws lots of Trump and right wing loving folks to our doorstep. Of course, we have our own natives with lots of Northern transplants in the mix singing the mantra of ‘Making Amerika Great Again’.
In addition to those infamous Trump stickers on the many SUVs and pickup trucks, we have the seemingly countless license plates celebrating either the Marines or Army ( not too many Navy or Air Force ones though). Do any of these people realize that, contrary to the right wing rhetoric, WE ARE NOT AT WAR!? The last time we were really ‘ At War ‘ was December, 1941. All the rest of them were propaganda spins that, sadly, so many suckers kept falling for. Well, the Bush SR. and Bush Jr/Cheney gangs got away with this fraud, and then Mr. ‘Hope and Change’ signed on, and of course Mr. President with the orange hair and tan continues the magic trick.
So, many of the aforementioned NASCAR fans and gung ho license plate carrying warriors are getting that fat tax break. You know, perhaps $ 900 a year, while the super rich and corporate hacks get upwards of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars each! Meanwhile, the right wing will continue to cut away at Medicaid and even Medicare. So, that white haired senior citizen who was driving an old pickup truck in front of me with his ‘Marines’ license plate and Trump sticker had better beware. Why? Well, he looks like he may be in line for going into a Nursing home in the not too distant future. With those Medicaid cuts happening he may not even be able to get placed in one! Or , until that day comes, he will most likely have to go deeper into his pockets for medications, because his Medicare will be stricter on what is covered etc.
What really both angers and saddens this writer is the whole topic of what the empire’s stooges (in both major parties) like to call ‘Defense Spending’. No, it is simply ‘Military Spending’ and it has been slowly bankrupting our nation to the tune of over 50% of our federal taxes.
Now, those Trump loving and Gung HO Marines & Army lovers applaud the fact that Trump and the ‘Swamp’ want to increase the spending! So, while our towns and cities are teetering on insolvency, along with our states, more money is NOT going to help them fiscally. Instead, it is going to subsidize the 900+ foreign bases, overkill weapons systems and overall deployment of our military personnel to places they have NO business (and had NO business) being in! Our cherished ‘Safety Net’ is being torn apart with this insanity and the suckers still think THEY are the patriots! The real patriots are we folks who do NOT wish to send our young soldiers to all those places overseas to either kill or be killed for strictly the purposes of this Military Industrial Empire!
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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 300 of his work posted on sites like Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected]
