The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America
by Robert Scheer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert ScheerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-09
ISBN: 0446505277
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Twelve
Book Reviews of The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America
Book Review: It's Alive and It's Not Boris Karloff
Summary: 4 Stars
So why does Boeing insist on making the wasteful and unneccessary C-17 military transport when not even the Pentagon wants it. Why not, for example, build civilian transports instead. Well, it's really a no-brainer, as they say. The C-17 pumps out a profit margin of 13 %, while the most profitable of airliners, the 747, earns less than 5% (p. 97). Think what that profit differential does for Boeing on Wall Street or for executive stock bonuses. And though Scheer doesn't mention it, military contractors don't have to claw as hard for the same buck as civilian outfits.
Then too, it's not like the C-17 is an isolated case. Think super-sophisticated jet fighters and cutting-edge submarines, all the billions being spent to defeat guys with razor blades and cell phones. There's a disconnect somewhere, but then maybe we're missing the dots. The book zeroes in on our now notorious military-industrial (& congressional) complex, showing how it's become all stomach and no brain, feasting like Frankenstein on the national treasury with no comparable enemy in sight. No wonder that despite our forefathers, we go in search of dragons to slay and where there are only toads, we make them into dragons. In short, our Frankenstein creation is running amok and feeds only on cash dollars.
Scheer's book reads more like an longer version of his late, lamented op-ed's in the LA Times, i.e. before the Tribune Co. decided he'd become bad for business and put a nice safe centrist in his place. Nonetheless, the story can't be told often enough. Of all discretionary spending (non-entitlement), 59% goes for the Pentagon, while the other 41% is for everything else, like health, transportation, education, and so on (p. 169). No wonder levees break, bridges fall down, and we rank somewhere behind Luxembourg in math and science.
Of course, the budget-gobbling monster couldn't continue without its shills in congress, the Pentagon, and corporate- sponsored think tanks. It's the Richard Perle, Barbara Boxer-type stories that the book also tells-- these little Igor's that keep the creature's pulse going. However, the author really doesn't face up to the problem of how we get out of this unsustainable war-making economy. Just where are the comparable civilian jobs when Corporate America is moving overseas and leaving us Walmart instead. No, we're in a pickle that's been building for some time and we best face up to it. The era of American exceptionalism is over. The empire we've built of which the military-industrial Frankenstein is the over-sized muscle is beginning to feast on us too. And only an aroused citizenry with pitchforks can turn up the heat to corral the monster in our midst.
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